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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



PRESBYTERIAN 
BROTHERHOOD 



REPORT OF THE FIRST CONVENTION 

HELD AT INDIANAPOLIS 

NOVEMBER THIRTEENTH 

TO FIFTEENTH 

NINETEEN-SIX 






PHILADELPHIA, PA. 

THE PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 

1907 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

FF.3 15 1907 

.-Copyright Entry 
CLASS A XXc, Bo, 
COPY B. 



Copyright, 1907 

By the Trustees of the Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath 

School Work 



Published February r , 1907 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. Introduction. John Clark Hill, D.D. ... 5 
II. Opening Exercises. Henry S. Osborne, pre- 

siding 19 

Devotional Hour. John E. Bushnell, D.D. 19 

III. What the Presbyterian Church Stands For. 

Wm. H. Roberts, D.D., LL. D. . . . . 32 

IV. The Boy and the Church. Patterson DuBois. 50 
V. The Church and the Man. Charles S. Holt. 66 

VI. Vice-President Fairbanks' Address .... 86 
VII. The Genesis of the Presbyterian Brother- 
hood. The Rev. R. R. Bigger, Ph. D. . . 89 
VIII. Greetings from Fraternal Organizations. 

John Clark Hill, D.D., presiding .... 92 
i. The Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip. 

Rev. W. H. Pheley, Ph. D., Secretary. . 92 

2. The Brotherhood of St. Andrew of the 

P. E. Church. John Henry Smale ... 95 

3. The United Presbyterian Men's League. 

Judge Mackenzie Cleland 100 

IX. The Conference on Practical Work. . 

President C. W. Dabney, LL. D., presiding . 104 
Messrs. Vose, Sutherland, Hall, Bowling, 
and Chambers. 
X. Address of the Hon. William Jennings Bryan. 115 
XL Addresses and Conference. H. C. Gara, pre- 
siding 142 

Brotherhood : Its Need in the Church. 
The Rev. Paul C. Martin 142 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XII. Brotherhood: Its Development in the 

Church. The Rev. Joseph E. McAfee ... 160 

XIII. Brotherhood: Its Responsibilities. 

Charles W. Gordon, D.D 171 

XIV. The Evangelization of our Countrymen. 

/. W. Chapman, D.D 192 

XV. The Men of our Church and Their Minis- 
ter. /. Ross Stevenson, D.D 207 

XVI. The Men of our Church and the Labor In- 
terests. The Rev. Charles Stelzle . . . 217 
XVII. The Men of our Church and the Spiritual 

Life. Charles G. Trumbull 228 

XVIII. The Men of our Church and Civil Affairs. 

Ira Landrith, D.D., LL. D 236 

XIX. The Men of our Church and Bible Study. 

W. W. White, D.D 246 

XX. Evangelization of the World. 

Robert E. Speer 255 

THE APPENDIX 

I. Minutes of the Convention . . . 267 
II. The Attendance at the Convention. 270 

III. Analysis of the Members of the Con- 

vention, by Occupation .... 270 

IV. The Convention Button .... 281 
V. The Assembly's Committee on Men's 

Societies 282 

VI. Sample Constitutions 283 



The Presbyterian Brotherhood 
I 

INTRODUCTION 

BY JOHN CLARK HILL, D.D. 

This book needs no introduction except some 
historical notes. It is a book of practical 
things. It will appeal to Christian men of all 
denominations, but, of course, particularly to 
Presbyterians. It is not a book of cast-iron 
models, or hard and fast rules. It is exactly in 
line with the policy that has directed the 
Brotherhood movement from the beginning. 

The controlling aim has been to enlist men 
in " works of Christian usefulness," by help- 
ing them to recognize the things they have left 
undone ! The movement is designed to rehabil- 
itate the neglected things, to magnify the in- 
significant, to glorify the commonplace in 
Christian service. It is confidently believed 
that the Brotherhood will actually accomplish 
much towards this end. 

The first definite action looking to the or- 
ganization of the Brotherhood was taken in the 

5 



6 



THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 



Presbytery of Mahoning. The Kev. Kobert E. 
Bigger, Ph. D., pastor of the Presbyterian 
Church of Massillon, Ohio, drafted an overture 
which was adopted by the presbytery at the 
fall meeting, 1894, and sent to the synod, with 
a request that it be adopted and transmitted 
to the General Assembly, in the following 
terms : — 

"The Synod of Ohio respectfully overtures 
the One Hundred and Seventeenth General As- 
sembly of the Presbyterian Church in the 
United States of America to appoint a special 
committee, which shall make full investigation 
of the question of men's societies, and report 
to the One Hundred and Eighteenth General 
Assembly, with the view to the formation of a 
men's order, or Brotherhood, within the Presby- 
terian Church, which shall be distinctively 
Presbyterian in name and purpose, and pro- 
viding for presbyterial, synodical, and national 
conventions, for the purpose of bringing 
Presbyterian men together in the interests of 
the Presbyterian Church, and in the interest 
of winning men to Christ." 

A committee of five was appointed and in- 
structed "to report as desired," and the Stated 
Clerk was "instructed to place at its disposal 
such information as comes to his office in the 
regular reports of the presbyteries." 

The following were appointed as the commit- 
tee : The Eev. John Clark Hill, D.D., Spring- 
field, Ohio; the Eev. John Balcom Shaw, D.D., 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION / 

Chicago; the Rev. S. Edward Young, D.D., 
Pittsburg, Pa. ; Mr. William T. Ellis, Wyncote, 
Pa.; Mr. Andrew Stevenson, Chicago. 

The report presented by this committee to 
the Assembly of 1906, gave a brief historical 
sketch of the movements among the churches 
aiming at the organization of men for Christian 
service, from which the following data are 
taken : — 

The present movement for the organization 
of men's societies for Christian work in con- 
nection with the local churches began about fif- 
teen years ago. It was made the subject of a 
notable paper read at the Congress of Religions 
that was held auxiliary to the World's Fair 
in Chicago in 1893. This gave great impetus 
to the movement in nearly all evangelical de- 
nominations. Many of our pastors welcomed 
this impetus, organized men's clubs or leagues, 
most of which aimed specially at increasing the 
effectiveness of the Sunday evening services. 
The existence of these organizations was 
brought to the attention of the Assembly by 
the Narrative on the State of Religion in 1895 
in the following terms: "The call is made for 
the organization of men. The men of our 
church, as a class, are falling to the rear of the 
great host of God in both service and benevo- 
lence. This occurs largely because they are not 
organized into associations as the women are. 
To evangelize men, to pray and labor for their 
salvation, is the need of the hour, second to no 



8 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

other call in the sphere of Christian work." 
This was a notable utterance, but the Assembly 
did nothing definite to promote the needed or- 
ganization. 

Six years later, in 1901, the Narrative said: 
"The reports of the efforts in organizing the 
men of the church into action present no great 
encouragement. In quite a large number of 
cases the experiment is tried, but whatever it 
may accomplish in outward appearances for 
the local church, it has accomplished very little 
for the Boards of the church. A great prob- 
lem is to get very generally from men, for the 
kingdom of Christ, the plan, push, perseverance, 
enterprise, and energy which business monopo- 
lizes. If the men in the churches were as are 
the women, the kingdom would come in leaps 
and bounds." 

In 1902 the Narrative states that "a few 
men's societies have their bond in the love of 
missions, and some support their own mission- 
aries in home and foreign lands. Your com- 
mittee thinks that herein is a splendid oppor- 
tunity for our church, and through the Gen- 
eral Assembly would call on the men of the 
church for organized work along distinctly 
spiritual and missionary lines." 

In 1903 the Narrative declares that "the 
societies organized for men are comparatively 
few, and for the most part of a social nature. 
A few societies are reported which are dis- 
tinctly spiritual, such as the Brotherhood of 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION V 

Andrew and Philip. It is a question of ear- 
nest consideration of each pastor whether or not 
this matter is receiving the attention which it 
deserves, and whether or not onr young men 
are finding the spiritual culture essential to 
their growth, and are being marshaled and 
trained for Christian service as they should be. 
Here is a field that, in too many instances, is 
proving but fallow ground. ' ' 

In 1904 the statement is made: "Very few 
societies exist for our men, but where they have 
been organized and faithfully maintained, such 
encouraging results have attended their work 
that your committee is hopeful that ensuing 
years may see a general movement toward such 
organization throughout our church and es- 
pecially in the cities. ' ' 

The Questionaire. — In order to get at more 
definite detail as to the character and success 
of the existing societies, the committee sent out 
a Questionaire containing the following ques- 
tions : 

1. Is there now, or has there been, a men's 
society of any kind connected with your church ? 

2. Of what nature? What objects? 

3. Success or failure? 

4. Causes: a. Success. 

b. Failure. 

5. Do you feel the need of organized work 
among your men? 

6. On what lines? 

7. What do you believe to be the attitude of 



10 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

the men of your congregation towards such an 
organization as is outlined in the overture to 
the General Assembly? 

8. What do you think is the attitude of min- 
isters and laymen in other congregations? 

9. What is your personal attitude towards 
the proposed Brotherhood? 

10. What name would you propose for it? 

11. What suggestions have you to make to 
the committee as to a plan of organization? 

The replies demonstrated the fact that there 
was virtual unanimity on the part of pastors, 
elders, and laymen as to the need of organiz- 
ing in accord with the Ohio Overture. 

Types of Societies. — The investigation of the 
committee covered the purposes and activities 
of the existing societies. These may be 
grouped under two general divisions: 

1. Those that make prominent a definitely 
spiritual purpose, and employ direct religious 
agencies. 

2. Those that make good fellowship promi- 
nent as an indirect means of promoting the in- 
terests of the local church. 

Brotherhoods and Bible Classes. — 1. In the 
first division we find organizations such as the 
following : 

(a) Chapters of the Brotherhood of Andrew 
and Philip. The Brotherhood was started 
among churches of the Reformed Church in the 
U. S., but not as a strictly denominational or- 
ganization or under denominational control. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 11 

Churches in other denominations organized 
chapters. Our own Assembly in 1899 endorsed 
this organization, and commended it to the fa- 
vorable consideration of the sessions of our 
churches. 

The object of the Brotherhood of Andrew and 
Philip is the spread of Christ's kingdom among 
men, especially young men. 

The rules of the Brotherhood are two: The 
Rule of Prayer, and the Eule of Service. The 
Rule of Prayer is to pray daily for the spread 
of Christ's kingdom among young men, and for 
God's blessing upon the labors of the Brother- 
hood. The Rule of Service is, to make an ear- 
nest effort each week to bring at least one young 
man within hearing of the gospel of Jesus 
Christ, as set forth in the services of the church, 
young people's prayer meetings and young 
men's Bible classes. 

There are now several hundred active chap- 
ters of this Brotherhood in our denomination.* 

(b) The Organized Men's Bible Class. — This 
type of work for men has had great and con- 
stantly increasing success. The Baraca Union 
of America has a large number of men's Bible 
classes under its care, with some in our 
churches, and, as a rule, doing effective service 
for Christ and the church. 

The Cook County (Illinois) Sunday-school 

*Churches desiring information regarding the formation 
of chapters should communicate with the Rev. W. H. 
Pheley, Sec, 1308 Arch St., Philadelphia, Pa. 



12 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

Association, through a special department, has 
done much to make men's Bible classes popu- 
lar throughout the whole country. 

The most notable development of this type 
of work is seen in the Young Men's Presby- 
terian Union of Chicago. This paragraph is 
from its constitution : 

"The object of the Union shall be to establish 
fraternal relations between all Bible classes, 
clubs, and kindred organizations devoted to 
work for young men, in the churches holding 
the Eeformed faith, within the limits of Chi- 
cago Presbytery; to foster religious education, 
spiritual development, denominational fealty, 
and broad Christian citizenship; and to 
strengthen fellowship among all young men in 
such churches." 

The Bible class is made the dominant feature, 
but auxiliary means are employed for reaching 
men. This work is accomplished through dis- 
tinct departments, such as Devotion, Fealty, 
Education, Citizenship, Organization, Fellow- 
ship, Missions, Evangelistics, and Athletics. 

The work of this Union has created such en- 
thusiasm that nearly all our churches in Chi- 
cago have organized their men on this basis. 
Quite a number of the clubs and leagues that 
had been organized for purely social or literary 
purposes, and had become weak or extinct, have 
been reorganized on the Bible class plan, with 
a decided increase of spiritual efficiency. The 
Union is spiritual at its core, and has become 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 13 

a vital, aggressive, and permanent force in 
unifying the Presbyterian men of Chicago, and 
has awakened a degree of denominational 
loyalty and evangelistic zeal never before 
known among them. 

Clubs and Leagues. — 2. The second class of 
societies are of what may be regarded the so- 
cial type. These have employed all kinds of 
methods with the ultimate aim of strengthen- 
ing the local church. Where the methods em- 
ployed have, in a measure, kept the church and 
its spiritual objects largely in the background, 
and the chief means employed were suppers 
and socials, the investigation shows that such 
societies last only a few short years. It has 
been almost demonstrated by the Questionable 
that in order to permanency and efficiency there 
must be some clearly avowed spiritual purpose. 

The most successful societies that have em- 
ployed indirect means have followed many of 
the methods of the Young Men's Christian As- 
sociation. This agency has given the churches 
an illustration of what men "can accomplish 
in practical Christian activities when they give 
themselves seriously to the task." Many of 
these methods have been employed by churches 
that are popularly called "Institutional 
Churches," which really means nothing more 
than that the church has organized agencies to 
do works of practical Christian usefulness in 
addition to the work of providing for worship, 
devotion, and Scripture study. 



14 



THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 



It is generally recognized that the men of the 
average church do little or nothing, unless "offi- 
cers in the church," in the way of service that 
would be a direct help to the church in increas- 
ing its influence in a community. It ought to 
be far easier for the men of any congregation 
to organize a thoroughly successful work than 
it is for the Y. M. C. A. to do so. In a congre- 
gation we have a definite constituency to appeal 
to and a church building as a centre for opera- 
tions. There would seem to be a definite ob- 
ligation to prosecute some such work in almost 
every congregation, duly adjusted to its equip- 
ment, environment, and constituency. 

The Questionaire revealed the fact that most 
failures were attributed to "lack of a definite 
purpose"; "lack of proper organization"; 
' ' lack of cooperation with other similar organiz- 
ations"; "ignorance as to best methods to em- 
ploy"; "too much of the social element," and 
"not enough religion." 

Success has been constant where there was a 
well-defined purpose constantly kept in view, 
and where the pastor was able to secure the co- 
operation of earnest, enthusiastic helpers. 

The methods employed by the successful or- 
ganizations of this type have been such as these : 

1. Plans to increase the efficiency of the Sun- 
day evening service, by publicity, by looking 
after strangers, and providing for the gen- 
eral social intercourse of the men of the con- 
gregation. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 15 

2. The organizing of Ushers' Associations. 

3. The organizing of classes for the study of 
missions. 

4. The promotion of intelligence regarding 
the Boards of the Church. 

5. The establishment of bath-rooms and gym- 
nasiums; reading rooms and libraries; employ- 
ment and boarding-house bureaus ; sick and re- 
lief funds; savings banks; classes for physical 
culture; athletics; educational classes of var- 
ious kinds. 

6. The promotion of civic reform. 

7. The creation and promotion of temperance 
sentiment. 

8. Work for boys. 

The Action of the General Assembly. Af- 
ter the consideration of the report at the meet- 
ing at Des Moines, May, 1906, the following 
action was adopted unanimously: 

1. That this General Assembly authorizes the 
formation of a Brotherhood within the Presby- 
terian Church in the United States of America, 
to include all men's organizations now existing 
or hereafter to be formed in connection with 
local congregations. 

2. It is further recommended : 

(a) That all existing organizations of men 
in our congregations which declare their adop- 
tion of Article 2 of the Provisional Plan, here- 
inafter given, be hereby recognized as charter 
organizations of the Brotherhood. 

(b) That in all our congregations, where 



16 



THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 



there is at present no such organization, steps 
be taken, wherever possible, to secure some or- 
ganization of men. 

(c) That all presbyteries and synods appoint 
a Standing Committee on the Brotherhood, for 
the purpose of fostering in whatever ways may 
be expedient organized work for men in the 
churches, and that these committees arrange for 
presbyterial and synodical conventions of the 
laymen within their bounds. 

(d) That the General Assembly appoint each 
year a Standing Committee on the Brother- 
hood. 

(e) That the Assembly appoint a Committee 
on Men's Societies, consisting of five ministers 
and five elders, for the purpose of perfecting 
and promoting this movement on the lines set 
forth in the Provisional Plan. This committee 
shall arrange for the first convention, which 
shall be held without expense to the General 
Assembly. 

(/) That a convention of the laymen of the 
church be held, under the authorization and 
approval of the General Assembly, as soon as 
practical. 

3. That this Assembly approves and adopts 
the following Provisional Plan for the or- 
ganization of the Brotherhood: 

(1) The name of this organization shall be 
"The Presbyterian Brotherhood." 

(2) The object of the Brotherhood shall be 
to secure the organization of the men of our 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 17 

congregations, with a view to spiritual develop- 
ment, fraternal relations, denominational fealty, 
the strengthening of fellowship, and the engage- 
ment in works of Christian usefulness. 

(3) Conventions shall be held from time to 
time for mutual counsel and inspiration. Each 
organization shall be entitled to at least one 
representative in such conventions, and one rep- 
resentative for each additional one hundred 
members or fraction thereof not less than twen- 
ty-five. Each convention shall plan for the 
meeting of the convention following, and shall 
appoint such committees and officers as may 
be necessary. 

(4) The powers of the annual convention shall 
be advisory and declarative only, and no action 
taken by the convention shall be binding on 
any local organization unless adopted by reg- 
ular action according to its constitution. 

(5) The Brotherhood shall report to the Gen- 
eral Assembly annually, and shall employ such 
means as may be necessary to secure, in co- 
operation with the Stated Clerk of the General 
Assembly, detailed annual reports from all lo- 
cal organizations. 

(6) It is distinctly declared that the purpose 
of this plan is, to bring all existing organiza- 
tions in our churches into a close working union, 
without in any way imposing on them a definite 
form of organization, and leaving them abso- 
lutely free to prosecute any form or method of 
Christian activity that may be adapted to the 



18 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

local organization; provided, however, that the 
constitution of the local organization shall de- 
clare that it is to be governed by the principles 
set forth in Chapter XXIII of the Form of 
Government of the Presbyterian Church in the 
XL S. A., and therefore "be under the immediate 
direction, control, and authority of the session 
of such church. ' ' 

The Committee appointed under this action 
consisted of those already named, with the ad- 
dition of the Rev. Alfred H. Barr, Detroit; 
Michigan; the Eev. DeWitt M. Benham, Ph.D., 
Baltimore, Md. ; Mr. Charles T. Thompson, 
Minneapolis, Minn. ; and Mr. James M. Patter- 
son, St. Louis, Mo. 

Under the direction of the committee, the con- 
vention was held with the able assistance of 
the pastors and elders of the churches of In- 
dianapolis. 

Sample Constitutions. The numerous re- 
quests that have been made for suggestions for 
constitutions are met, in a measure, at least, 
by what will be found in the Appendix. 



II 

OPENING EXEECISES 

HENRY S. OSBORNE, PRESIDING 

Brothers of the convention: Our elder 
Brother, the unseen One is here with us, and 
the Holy Spirit is here with us in power. The 
power of this convention, the power of this 
movement depends not upon man, but upon him. 
It depends upon what we shall do while we are 
here, and whether we ourselves shall get out of 
sight and sink the human element and let the 
Master take possession of us and do as he will. 
At the beginning of this devotional, shall 
it not be a time of special consecration for 
every one of us? As we begin, let us take 
hold of Christ and let him do as he will, whether 
he will make much of this convention or little. 
Our only concern is whether or not we shall be 
absolutely subject to him. In this spirit let us 
begin this hour of prayer, which will be lead 
by the Rev. John E. Bushnell, D J)., pastor of 
the Westminster Church, Minneapolis, Minne- 
sota. 

Dr. Bushnell said. — Beloved Brethren : 

19 



20 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

How we open this first hour may make all the 
difference in the world as to how we shall spend 
all of the rest of the hours of the convention. I 
have come before you at the request of this 
committee to occupy the time at this hour, but 
I realize that there are eloquent listeners in 
this body, that there are longing hearts here, 
and that the burden is not laid upon me as first 
I thought it was when the appointment came 
to me. But we are here to look into the deep 
things of God. The nearest and safest ap- 
proach of the Brotherhood of Man is by the 
great white throne. It is very important that 
we should lose sight of self, forget the names 
connected with this convention, be absolutely 
devoid of self consciousness, which would stand 
between us and the greatest success. So I 
simply want to open the Book this morning to 
give to you the message which God has given to 
my heart. 

While other bodies may pay attention to 
many things in organization, we still persist 
in believing in the great inspiration of our 
church, that it was created through the vision 
that man had of the glory of God. I believe 
the one great ruling thought in connection with 
our Presbyterian Brotherhood is such a text 
as that found in the book of Bevelation, "Holy, 
holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, who 
was and who is and who is to come." To the 
extent this morning that you and I can under- 
stand the mortality of all human agencies, to 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 21 

that extent shall we accomplish something. In 
the first epistle of Paul to Timothy, in the first 
chapter, there is a wonderful doxology into 
which the apostle enters, out of a long and mag- 
nificent course of reasoning. Life has its key- 
note; even material things have their keynote; 
every bridge that spans a river has its keynote ; 
every building that is made of stone and mor- 
tar has its keynote ; the doctrines of men have 
their keynotes; the lives of men have their key- 
note; prayer has its keynote. This is true in 
all of the affairs of human life, and the world's 
too. 

The first element of Paul's doxology, which 
also went a long way toward the making of it, 
you will find in the eleventh verse. You do 
not reach the doxology until you come to the 
seventeenth verse. Here is the first step to- 
ward it. Here he touches the orchestra of the 
soul ; he is getting into tune. See what it says. 
"According to the gospel of the glory of the 
blessed God, which was committed to my trust. " 

Stop there for a moment, and lose all other 
thought in the contemplation of the meaning of 
this. Our gospel is "the gospel of the glory 
of the blessed God." That means One whose 
heart is so kind, so tender, so watchful over 
all of his works that we can wound it, we can 
give him a heartache just as we can bring sor- 
row and grief to our earthly parents. So so- 
licitous is he for us that everything that con- 
cerns our happiness is such that it is a mes- 



22 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

sage of the gospel of God. Is not the God of 
our fathers the blessed God? The gospel that 
we preach is the gospel of our blessed God ; One 
whose love never fails toward them that seek 
him; One whose pity is deeper than the sea, 
and higher than the heavens. Is the gospel of 
the blessed God in our hearts this morning? 
What we need in this convention is to take a 
new conception of the duties of life, and of the 
beauty and power of the gospel that brings to 
us the loving-kindness of the Father, that we 
may look into his face. 

Is not this Fatherhood above all fatherhoods ? 
Is it upon the portals of our sanctuary, over our 
altars, in our homes, written in our hearts? 
This word "Fatherhood" is a blessed word. 
Are we ready this morning to enter into all of 
the length and breadth and depth and height of 
this expression, — "the gospel of the glory of 
the blessed God," who is holy because he is 
blessed ; because he is kind ; because he is long- 
ing, waiting, and working to see the further- 
ing of his purpose, the redemption of those for 
whom Jesus Christ has shed his most precious 
blood? 

That is a sweet story that is going the rounds 
just now concerning Mr. S — — . When he saw 
that the windmills of the country bore the 
words, "God is love," he asked the peasant why 
that was put on the windmills. Was is be- 
cause they thought his love changed with every 
passing breeze? The peasant replied, "No, 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 23 

that is all right; it means that no matter from 
which way the wind blows, God is still the God 
of love." That is the one great inspiration 
that gives us hope for the work which we have 
before us this morning. 

Some time since, I was a stranger passing an 
idle hour in a great city, in one of its lovely 
parks. It was a beautiful June morning. The 
grass was never greener nor the sky bluer. 
The birds were singing their sweetest songs, and 
all nature seemed to be making a jubilee over 
this thought of the glory of God, the loving 
God that made all things. As I wandered along 
with my eyes lifted up in contemplation of the 
glory of God, I almost stumbled upon the pros- 
trate form of a poor wretch who had not yet 
slept away his night's intoxication. And as I 
thought of the comparison of this beautiful 
world with this sad sight; of the glory of God 
in the beautiful morning; and this poor fellow 
whom God loved more than he loved all of the 
loveliness of the outer nature; this man drunk 
with the fumes of alcohol whose soul might 
have been intoxicated with heavenly harmonies ; 
whose heart might have been thrilled with 
Christian music ; I could not but be sad. 

What is the second note in the preparation 
of this wonderful doxology? The first is 
Fatherhood. Look at the fifteenth verse, 
■ ' Christ Jesus came into the world to save sin- 
ners ; of whom I am chief." Bear in mind that 
God has come down from the throne of glory; 



24 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

that he is within human reach. The Lamb of 
God taketh away the sins of the world; his 
precious blood was spilled for mankind. Jesus 
Christ was the Saviour of mankind. They 
built their pantheon in ancient Greece, and into 
this the people came to appease the wrath of 
their gods, and buy their favor. They invited 
the Christians to erect a statue there of Christ 
that he might belong to this congregation of 
deities. It was a foolish idea; we can forgive 
them ; little knew they of the sacredness of the 
cross of Christ. He could no more be com- 
pared with their deities, than the great solar 
system could be classified with the lamps and 
lights that man has constructed with his hands. 
We are invited to join a pantheon in this land, 
the pantheon of literature. Where do they 
place Christ? They say great things of his 
beauty and culture; that it is above all culture 
codes; and we know that no man ever wrote 
with his pen anything to correspond to the 
beauty and richness of the Beatitudes. There 
is a pantheon in Philadelphia which says that 
Jesus Christ was a mighty sage, and that he 
had great wisdom, and they will erect his statue 
with others. We answer back that if Christ is 
only another name added to the roll of philos- 
ophers, our hosanna is robbed of its sweetest 
note. This would erase the doxology from our 
pages, and the hosanna from our hearts. Jesus 
came into the world to save sinners. How do 
we feel down in our hearts ? Even after I have 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 25 

preached the gospel a number of years, some- 
times down in my heart, where the world can- 
not see, I wish that some one would come along 
and put his hand on my shoulder, some one who 
did not know who I was, and ask me to come to 
Jesus. I wish that some one would meet me in 
the street some day and in a loving way say, 
"Will you not come to Jesus?" That is what 
we need this morning. If we have come to him 
once for pardon of sins, that is all right, but 
we should come to him again and again. We 
still need him. This is a strange question to 
ask a gathering like this, but I must ask it. 
Are you saved! I know this seems rather out 
of place in a Brotherhood meeting like this, 
but you need to go back to the rudiments of 
your faith. Are you saved unto all glory? 
Are you close to Jesus! Are you saved by a 
great, unconquerable faith? Are you saved 
unto all the light of gladness that comes by 
feeling that every day you are walking with 
him? Then your life is no longer simply work, 
but every deed, every heart throb, every honor, 
and every tear are parts of the doxology. 

I beg you to take the third step that Paul 
took before he passed into that marvelous dox- 
ology. Look at the sixteenth verse. ' ' Howbeit 
for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as 
chief might Jesus Christ show forth all his long 
suffering, for an ensample of them that should 
thereafter believe on him unto eternal life." 
What does that mean? What is the third 



26 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

note of the apostle's wonderful doxology? It 
is the word that is ringing over Indianapolis 
to-day, this word Brotherhood. This is a great 
crowning thought. Then after all, a man's 
place in this world is first in the depth of his 
nature to realize something of the glory of the 
blessed God, that he shall pass through that 
blessed reviving experience, which is promised 
unto the saints of God. But he must not 
stop there. What does it mean, this sixteenth 
verse? It means, as I understand it, that God 
simply saved man as a specimen. God saved 
me that he might hold me up and show the world 
what he could do with me. That is my only 
purpose in life, — that I might drink a little at 
the fountain of life, and God might say, "See 
what I have done for that poor miserable man. ' ' 
I am God's specimen, God's example for other 
men, and they will say, "If God could save that 
man, help him, and make him happy and con- 
tent, then he can do the same for me." That is 
the end of all of our striving, brothers, that God 
may so take hold of us and waken the music 
in our souls that the heavenly choirs sometimes 
listening to our palpitating, throbbing life, may 
catch a sweet message from the harps of gold, 
and see not human, but divine workmanship, 
which has dropped a little spark of the holy life 
in our human veins out of which it creeps in 
loving tongues and accents. Now this world is 
being drawn by golden cords to Jesus' feet. 
These are the testimonies of the consecrated 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 27 

energies of those who have learned for them- 
selves the unspeakable depth of life as it comes 
from the hand of Christ. Is there anything in 
life to be compared to this great promise that 
we may gather to ourselves eternal life, and see 
heavenly ideals of conduct, and incorporate 
them into our lives? 

A man said to me the other day that he be- 
lieved wars are necessary, that heroism would 
depart from our young men were it not for 
discipline in military struggle. I was horrified 
at the thought. God forbid that men should 
fight one another in order to perpetuate hero- 
ism. Is it true that we will no longer have 
heroes because men no longer kill each other? 
There are greater heroisms. If young men 
will come to Jesus, he will fill their souls with 
work to be done, battles to be fought, struggles 
to be endured, rivers to be forded, swelling tor- 
rents to be braved, mountains to be climbed. 
May we have fire in these hearts of ours at the 
touch of Jesus Christ when he tells us to go 
forward, counting no cost too heavy, no journey 
too long, no campaign too costly, that thereby 
we may bring this living fire to suffering hu- 
manity. I tell you that those who follow the 
banner of Jesus Christ have need of courage, 
patience, clearness of conviction, and consecra- 
tion of purpose, in comparison with which this 
world's courage and patience seem but rudi- 
mentary. Paul was saved that through him 
the grace of the loving God might flow and be- 



28 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

come a flame of fire in the name of the Master. 
We ought to keep this thought in our heart of 
hearts that whatever else we may fail of, that 
whatever else we may succeed in, in this life 
this is the test of success. It is a shame that a 
man should withhold his hand from the Brother- 
hood of men and refuse to pass on the message 
of the glory of God to those who are in dark- 
ness. This is the very climax of shame ; this is 
the very height of ignominy. I believe the gos- 
pel has brought us to this point in the evolu- 
tion of the race that henceforth if a man shall 
die who has been favored of God with a voice 
to speak and sing and tell of his largeness and 
beauty, and has withheld his manhood for the 
sake of selfish comforts, and departs this life 
with no thought of telling of God's love among 
the poor or in the habitations of darkness, — 
that man does a great wrong, because he has 
withheld his manhood from the hands of him 
who saved him unto life eternal 2 if he be saved 
at all. 

Now, out of this trinity of thoughts, do you 
wonder that the apostle can no longer restrain 
himself? Fatherhood, the glory of the blessed 
God, that Jesus Christ by his blood has saved 
his soul. He breaks out in the seventeenth 
verse, "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, 
invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for 
ever and ever. Amen." Brothers can you 
swell that doxology to-day? Can you through 
all your organization keep in your heart of 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 29 

hearts the great Christian doxology, and take 
it with you north, south, east, and west? Let 
us try it. 

Now brethren, the meeting is yours for a few 
minutes. We have six or eight minutes before 
our hour is up. We may weld ourselves to- 
gether under the all pervading and all warming 
influence of the glory of the Holy Ghost, and 
we may then no longer be from New York, and 
from Ohio, and Indiana, and Illinois, and Min- 
nesota, and all the rest, but we may be just 
one large, childlike Presbyterian heart bowing 
before his throne asking him to put music of 
the great doxology in our hearts that we may 
preach it and discuss it all of the rest of our 
lives until the lone world shall catch it up and 
teach it until they reach the great white throne. 
I want to ask for a brief season of prayer. 
Will you sing just one verse of something that 
we know, and then we would like to have thirty 
or forty pointed little prayers that go right 
home to God. Don't wait for one another. I 
wish that Dr. Shaw would start us with a 
prayer. 

Prayer by the Eev. Dr. John Balcom Shaw. 
— O God, our Father, our Saviour, who doth 
breathe into human hearts the life of Jesus 
Christ, in these opening moments of this great 
convention we do pray for thy gracious and ten- 
der benediction. God, let us feel thy pres- 
ence so deeply and so keenly and so unmistak- 
ably that we will be fairly caught up into thy 



30 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

glory this morning. We pray thee that we shall 
forget about the world and the temporal things 
of earth, and that we may be lost in unselfish- 
ness and in the glory of our God and thus be 
lifting up the cross of our God, and having its 
warmth and life passed into ours, and that we 
shall become inflamed with thy precious life, 
and with a passion for service, and back into 
the world we shall go to take this message and 
the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God, this 
testimony of the Saviour Jesus Christ to those 
who are not yet one of the Brotherhood of 
Christ. We do thank thee, God, for this 
opening moment ; how it has set us in tune with 
the blessed word, and has brought us into uni- 
son with the choirs of the redeemed this morn- 
ing. We cannot keep it in our hearts ; it breaks 
over our lips ; we must give thee the doxology 
of our lives. God forgive us for all of the dis- 
cord that we have brought into that doxology in 
the past, and by thy redeeming grace and trans- 
forming spirit give us the power to put all dis- 
cord out of the chorus hereafter and be in uni- 
son with heaven and in tune with the very heart 
of the gospel, not only with our lips but in all 
of the testimony of our lives in this great as- 
cending and advancing doxology that grows as 
our lives go forward unto the King eternal, in- 
visible, the only wise God, and to him be honor 
and glory, forever and ever, Amen. 

(Followed by sentence prayers.) 

Dr. Bushjstell. — Now, dear brethren, our 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 31 

hour is up and I feel that God has come pretty 
close to us, and I am afraid to stop this meeting 
at this time ; but yet I know there are great in- 
terests lying before us, and that we will not 
soon forget our first meeting together. May 
we close this hour by repeating the Lord's 
Prayer in unison? 



Ill 

WHAT THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
STANDS FOR 

BY WILLIAM HENRY ROBERTS, D.D., LL.D. 

The churches of a nation are both causes and 
effects in relation to national development and 
welfare. As causes they operate to make the 
national life a distinctive life with marked char- 
acteristics. As effects they reveal in their own 
life features which are stamped upon them by 
the nation of which they are an integral part. 
The churches and the nation influence each 
other reciprocally and powerfully. 

The church of Scotland, for example, has been 
a potent influence in the development of the 
Scotch nation, and the Scotch character has im- 
parted much of its rugged strength and intel- 
lectual clearness to the church which has been 
the mother of many other Presbyterian 
churches. Further, the Protestant churches 
have been sources of life, power, and progress 
in a marked way to the nations in which they 
predominate, and these nations have made the 
churches themselves increasingly enterprising, 
earnest, and vigorous. 

32 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 33 

What is true of Scotland and other lands is 
true also of the United States of America. The 
American churches are different in certain re- 
spects from the Christian churches of other 
continents, just as the American nation is dis- 
tinct from all other nations. The American na- 
tion is, in an emphatic sense, the outgrowth of 
the American churches, and the churches have 
been influenced greatly in their development by 
the nation. Both churches and nation, because 
they are American, are instinct with the demo- 
cratic spirit, are full of a restless life which 
seeks through all outward forms the spiritual 
realities for which the forms stand, and are 
possessed in a marked way with world-wide 
ideas and hopes. 

This fact is true even of American churches 
of the monarchial type in government. Such 
churches in this land are freer, nearer the 
Christian ideal, and possessed of a better and 
fuller life than their counterparts in other and 
older lands. By whatever denominational 
names known, the Christian churches of this 
land do differ from those of other countries. 
The word "American" describes not only our 
country, but also its churches in their nature, 
their history, their characteristics, and their 
present and future potentiality for good. 

That they would thus differ, was apprehended 
by one, who, born in Scotland nearly two hun- 
dred years ago, became an American of the 
Americans, and lived to see the Declaration of 

3 



34 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

American Independence, which he signed, be- 
come a reality, both in state and church. It was 
John Witherspoon who invented the word 
" Americanism, " to describe the spirit which he 
saw abroad in this land one hundred and fifty 
years ago, a spirit which pervades to-day our 
whole country, influences powerfully European 
churches as well as American, and has become 
a cry of alarm within the precincts of the Vati- 
can. Americanism is a great reality. 

This much in the way of introduction to the 
subject, "The Presbyterian Church — What it 
Stands For." The church, whose representa- 
tives we are, is not the church of Scotland, nor 
the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, but the 
Presbyterian Church in the United States of 
America. "We are gathered as Christians, it is 
true, but in the foreordaining providence of 
God, we are American Christians of the Presby- 
terian type. 

In the light, then, of American history, of 
American religious activity in the present, and 
of American hopes for the future, what does 
the Presbyterian Church in the United States 
of America stand for? 

It is needful to bear in mind that the sub- 
ject is discussed before a convention of Ameri- 
can Presbyterian men gathered to consider 
what they can do for their church, their coun- 
try, and their divine Lord. 

Into any full treatment of the subject the 
limits of time forbid us to enter. Certain par- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 35 

ticulars are noted which have to do with the 
church and the nation, and which are vitally 
pertinent to present conditions, as well as his- 
torically interesting in relation to the past. 

I. The Presbyterian Church, has always stood 
on this continent for the government of the peo- 
ple, by the people, and for the people. It is his- 
torically the first of American federal repub- 
lics. Its General Presbytery, organized in 
Philadelphia in 1706, antedated by three quar- 
ters of a century the Continental Congress. It 
represented, for that period of time, prior to 
American independence, more than any other 
American church, all the political ideas in which 
as a nation we profess to believe, which make 
us to differ from other nations, and which have 
made us and will keep us a nation. 

Some of these principles are the equality of 
men before the law, absolute liberty of con- 
science, the right of the people to choose their 
own rulers, and make their own laws, and the 
federal system of political government as the 
best government for man. The beginnings of 
these and other ruling ideas were brought to 
this new land by those protestant Christians of 
Europe who were our ecclesiastical ancestors, 
and were early developed on our soil. To these 
transplanted ideas, the great principle of the 
absolute separation of the church from the 
state, a principle of purely American origin, 
was added, and was acknowledged officially by 
American Presbyterians in 1729. 



36 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

These principles, first advocated in the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries, are still at 
work in the modern world, are still potent for 
the securing of the welfare of man, are still 
mighty to sweep away from the path of human 
progress barriers erected by caste and priest- 
hood, are recognized now in all free lands as 
fundamental to man's true progress, both sec- 
ular and religious, in this world of time, and 
on this continent for two hundred years their 
constant teacher, their loyal advocate, their 
steadfast supporter, amid varying conditions of 
good and evil, has been that oldest of American 
federal republics, the Presbyterian Church in 
the United States of America. 

Our church has stood in our country for two 
centuries emphasizing the rights of the indi- 
vidual, and the rights and welfare of all the 
people. Not by political action as a church has 
it accomplished a great work in this respect. 
Far from it! Its instruments of work have 
been the example furnished by its own system 
of government, the teachings of its pulpits, and 
the character and lives of its members. For 
instance, in no spirit of boastfulness, but in a 
spirit of thankfulness to God do we point out 
that two of the last three Presidents, and the 
present President of the United States, came 
out of Presbyterian homes. And it is never 
to be forgotten that Abraham Lincoln was of 
the Presbyterian way of thinking. Our Ameri- 
can Presbyterian Church has had a pervasive, 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 37 

far reaching, persuasive, silent, but potential 
influence in securing individual right, and in 
determining the welfare of all the people in this 
Republic. 

And the need of the present and the future in 
this land is Christian churches, which realize 
practically the value of the individual, which 
believe in all the people, and exist for all the 
people. May our church, with other like 
churches, maintain aggressively in the present 
and in the future in this line of progress the 
results which they have secured for the nation. 

II. Next in order, and logically, in the dis- 
cussion of our subject, it is noted that the Pres- 
byterian Church stands for the recognition of 
the rights and duties of the laity in the church. 
The right of the people to determine the gov- 
ernment and control the policy of the church as 
well as the state is a distinctive Presbyterian 
principle. As a principle it is one of the Xew 
Testament ideas which was given new life and 
power by the Protestant Reformation of the six- 
teenth century, and which has received largest 
recognition in English-speaking lands, especi- 
ally in the United States. 

As early as 1611 a Puritan Presbyterian 
church in Virginia was in the charge of its 
minister and four of its most religious men. 
The American Presbyterian Church, from its 
foundation in 1706, has been governed by repre- 
sentative bodies, in which ruling elders, as rep- 
resentatives of the people, are seated with min- 



38 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

isters. This recognition of the rights and du- 
ties of the people in the church, springing out 
of the New Testament emphasis on the min- 
istry of gifts, as distinct from the ministry of 
office, has been the source of much of the prog- 
ress made by many American denominations. 

At the beginning of our history as a nation 
only the churches of the Puritan and the Pres- 
byterian families acknowledged this popular 
right and obligation, but since that day all the 
Protestant churches have incorporated the prin- 
ciple unto their administrative system in 
greater or less degree. But, whatever the dif- 
ference between the denominations in this re- 
spect, the leadership in its acknowledgment and 
application belongs to the churches of the Puri- 
tan and Presbyterian type. And have they not 
been in the van of all religious progress in this 
land, perennial sources of movements for moral 
reform and spiritual regeneration ? Have they 
not by their deliberate policies repeated in these 
later generations New Testament history, by the 
founding of societies for Christian work, in- 
cluding in their membership men, women, and 
children? 

All these are facts of history and emphasize 
the need of further evolution along the same 
lines. The time has come when to maintain its 
character as an aggressive and progressive 
church, the Presbyterian Church in the United 
States of America must give further expression 
to the vital principle of the rights and duties 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 39 

of the laity, by the fuller organization of its 
members, especially its men, as working forces 
for the moral and spiritual welfare of the world. 

Some other churches of the Presbyterian 
family are in advance of our church in this re- 
spect. We must come even as they to the recog- 
nition of the logic of the situation. It is our 
boast that as a church we are a church of the 
New Testament model. The New Testament 
church emphasized the truth that the possession 
even of one talent by a disciple of Christ in- 
volved the use of that talent in the Lord's work, 
according to opportunity and under proper 
guidance. Are we a New Testament church? 
Then will we be true to our character as a 
church by making this our watchword for min- 
isters and people, for men, women, and children, 
'Work for all, and all at work'? 

III. A third thing for which the Presbyterian 
Church stands is the spirituality of the church. 
It has always been the clear and definite teach- 
ing of the American Presbyterian Church that 
not only is the church a spiritual body, but also 
that its purposes and objects are purely spirit- 
ual. This principle as to the church as an or- 
ganization finds its source in that word of 
Christ which declares that his kingdom is not 
of this world. It has as its basis in the indi- 
vidual life, however, the divine invitation, "Son, 
give me thine heart. " It is out of the heart that 
the issues of life proceed. If the heart be sur- 
rendered to God, and be as a result the dwelling 



40 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

place of the Holy Spirit, then the affections will 
be set upon the things which are above, and 
then true spirituality will make itself evident 
in all speech and conduct. 

Further, it is this heart surrendered to Christ 
which is the object of all Christian effort, and 
it is the union of Christ-filled hearts, which from 
the human side not only produces Christian 
churches, but also determines their nature and 
purposes. First of these purposes stands the 
salvation of souls. A spiritual church cannot 
but seek to save the lost, for the saved sinners 
who compose it know both the need and the 
value of salvation. Second of these purposes 
stands the effort after righteousness in all con- 
duct. A spiritual church cannot but hunger 
after righteousness, for its members will seek 
always for themselves and for others, increase 
in that holiness which our Saviour commends 
and commands. Salvation is from sin to 
righteousness, righteousness first in the indi- 
vidual, and then through the individual in so- 
ciety. 

This is not the way of the worldly man in the 
work of securing human welfare. He prefers 
to begin on the outside, to deal solely with things 
external. The heart is to him a thing indif- 
ferent. His methods are chiefly those of legis- 
lation, and his weapons those of compulsion. 
Spirituality as a quality of mind and heart he 
knows nothing about. He understands dollars 
and laws and the use of force, but not souls. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 41 

How different the Christian and the Christian 
churches! They know the value of souls, the 
purposes of Christ, the reality of things spirit- 
ual, the power of persuasion backed by the Holy 
Ghost. And for all that the word spirituality 
stands for, that the Presbyterian Church stands 
for. It stands for the men who use the things 
of earth as stepping stones to higher and 
heavenly things. It stands for the church as 
the witness to Christ, to his truth, to his sal- 
vation, and to the hopes which center in him for 
a redeemed humanity and a transformed world. 
And the instruments for the work to be ac- 
complished are not legislation and force, but 
the powers of Christian teaching and per- 
suasion, sustained and guided by the Holy 
Spirit. The Presbyterian Church believes that 
the church should keep to its own sphere of la- 
bor, should seek to bring men to follow Christ, 
because they believe in and love him, and then 
the law of God, the Ten Commandments in- 
cluded, written upon the tablets of the human 
heart, will inevitably result in righteousness 
both for the individual and the nation. 

IV. This Presbyterian Church stands also for 
the unity of the church. When it was or- 
ganized in 1706 it stood for the undivided Pres- 
byterian forces of the American colonies. It 
has also been always true to the grand definition 
of the Church Universal contained in the West- 
minster Confession, and as a result has always 
acknowledged as brethren all who believe in, 



42 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

love, and serve Jesus Christ. Divisions there 
have been in the church, but they sooner or 
later have been, or will be, healed. The spirit 
of our church is the spirit of unity, and to-day 
this spirit is widely disseminated in our land. 
This is the age not of division, but of unity. 
Presbyterians respond largely to the attractive 
influences which are abroad, and which tend to 
the general acknowledgment of Christian 
brotherhood, and to cooperation in all Christian 
work. The church, for instance, initiated the 
organized movement which resulted in the 
world-wide Presbyterian alliance. It also re- 
sponded promptly and by overwhelming major- 
ities to the proposal for the reunion recently 
consummated with the Cumberland Presbyte- 
rian Church. 

The movement for the federation of the 
Protestant churches of this continent was like- 
wise begun by our denomination. And what- 
ever may be true of American Protestant 
churches generally, the Presbyterian Church in 
the United States of America does stand for 
the conviction that the 2,200,000 communicants 
in the nine Presbyterian and Kef ormed churches 
in this country should unite in one church, not 
for pride of numbers, but for the added power 
which union ever brings. The churches are one 
in faith and church order. They stand for the 
same great moral and spiritual ideas. God 
hasten the day when they shall stand shoulder 
to shoulder in the Lord's work, for in union 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 43 

there is not only strength, but also divine power 
and the divine blessing. 

V. Another feature of the life of the Pres- 
byterian Church is its evangelistic and mis- 
sionary activity. From its first establishment 
on American soil it has been eager and earnest 
in seeking the salvation of souls. The first 
presbytery, at its first fully recorded meet- 
ing in 1707, took steps to send missionaries to 
what were regarded as the spiritually destitute 
places of the country. And from that day to 
this our church has been in the van in all evan- 
gelistic and missionary work. The home mis- 
sions of the church are to-day located in every 
state and territory of our own land, and its 
foreign missions are found in fifteen different 
countries. As President Benjamin Harrison 
said: "Though it has made no boast or shout, 
the Presbyterian Church has yet been an ag- 
gressive church; it has been a missionary 
church from the beginning." 

Would we have yet greater success as a 
church, would we make the future bright with 
the triumphs of the gospel, would we be true 
to our past and to our character, there must yet 
be more zealous cultivation of the evangelistic 
and missionary spirit both among our ministers 
and members. Especially must earnest work 
be done in our own land, in connection with the 
religious condition of our adult male popula- 
tion. There are to-day in the United States 
12,000,000 of adult males, nearly two thirds of 



44 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

the whole number, who are not in direct con- 
nection with any church bearing the name of 
Christian, either Protestant or Catholic. The 
masses of unconverted men in our cities, in 
country districts, at the polls, are walls against 
which moral reforms and religious forces beat 
often in vain. By its history, by its character, 
our church is a church for men as well as for 
women, and it must give itself to systematic 
effort for the evangelization of men, would it 
in any degree meet responsibility, and make 
sure the moral future of the nation, and of the 
individuals which compose it. America, as has 
been well said, is another name for opportun- 
ity, and that opportunity means for the Pres- 
byterian Church, persistent earnest, all-embrac- 
ing evangelism, the preaching and teaching of 
the "whosoever will" gospel to every creature. 

VI. The Presbyterian Church has been also 
noted in every generation for its fidelity to its 
convictions as to truth. It has magnified the 
word of God above all other sources and forms 
of truth, and as the only infallible rule of faith 
and conduct. It has persistently acknowledged 
the divine Christ as the only Saviour of sin- 
ners, and resolutely maintained his unique au- 
thority as the only Lord of the conscience. In 
thus doing, it has honored God and respected 
man. 

It is true that its fidelity to truth has been 
one cause of complaint against it by some per- 
sons. The fact is that our church has been and 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 45 

is, at once the narrowest and the broadest of 
the Christian denominations. It is narrow, but 
only as the word of God is narrow. It insists, 
and rightly so, that there is a broad way 
which leads to ruin, and a narrow way which 
leads to life eternal. It is unqualified in its 
declaration that for adults, faith in the Lord 
Jesus Christ is the irrevocable condition of sal- 
vation, and that apart from Christ, men are 
without hope. It is narrow in its declarations 
of Scripture truth as some weak men count nar- 
rowness, because truth is always intolerant of 
falsehood. It is narrow, in short, because it 
has been and is, honest, and intelligent, and obe- 
dient to God in Christ. 

But it is also broad, broad in its sympathies, 
broad in its views of the possibilities of salva- 
tion for a lost world; broad in its insistence 
that the will of that God, who is at once a Sov- 
ereign and a Father, is the controlling factor 
in the destiny of man ; broad in including within 
the certainties of salvation all infants dying 
in infancy ; broad in its offer of salvation 
through the gospel to every creature ; broad in 
its recognition of all Christians as brethren in 
Christ and of all men as possible sharers in 
the joys and glories of the life everlasting. 

Narrow is our church because it is true to 
the law of God, and broad because it is in full 
sympathy with the love of God. 

This narrowness and this breadth have char- 
acterized our church in all its past history. 



46 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

Emphasizing both the law and the love of God, 
both his justice and his mercy, both his abso- 
lute sovereignty and his matchless grace in Je- 
sus Christ, it has been increasingly a power for 
the moral welfare of this nation, for the salva- 
tion of souls, and for the inb ringing of Christ's 
kingdom in this land ; yea, throughout the world. 

Sound views of truth are vital to a true na- 
tional life, and the moral and religious tone of 
this nation has been and is dependent upon cor- 
rect conceptions of what the Scriptures teach 
concerning God, and what duty God requires 
of man. And not the least of the things char- 
acteristic of our church has been its defense 
and dissemination of the truth of God as the 
supreme standard of human conduct and the 
vitalizing power of the republic. This nation 
owes an incalculable debt to the Presbyterian 
and some other churches, for the tenacity and 
vigor with which they have maintained the fun- 
damentals of the Christian system of truth. 
May this fidelity to truth characterize ever this 
church of ours from generation to generation. 

There are other things than those thus in- 
dicated for which the Presbyterian Church 
stands, such, for instance, as its relation to law 
and order; to popular education; to philan- 
thropy ; to general Christian doctrine ; to moral 
reform; and to man's freedom of access to God 
in worship. Into these we cannot enter. Suf- 
ficient is it to emphasize to this contention the 
six points named as of vital and present inter- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 47 

est. They are concisely these. The Presbyte- 
rian Church in the United States of America 
stands for, among other things: 

1. Loyalty to the priceless American heritage 
of individual liberty and popular government. 

2. The right and duty of every Christian to 
be a worker for Christ. 

3. The spiritual character, and purposes of 
the church, as Christ's agent for the salvation 
of men and the regeneration of the world. 

4. The unity of the church, emphasizing the 
need that Christians should strive not against 
one another, but with one another, for the do- 
ing of Christ's work in the world. 

5. That a living church must evidence its 
life by its evangelistic and missionary work. 

6. That the supreme duty of the church is 
loyalty to Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Scrip- 
tures as the law of Christ for both faith and 
conduct. 

May all these things abound increasingly in 
our midst as a church. May they permeate 
with increasing power all Christian churches. 
May they lead to thought, speech, and conduct, 
here and elsewhere which shall redound to the 
glory of Christ and the welfare of man. 

Ah! when I think of the church and the na- 
tion, of the church and the world, of the world 
and its sin and degradation, of the church in 
its comparatively dormant condition — above all, 
when I think of the church and its men, and of 
the possibilities stored up in the men of this 



48 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

land and of other lands in connection with the 
temporal and spiritual welfare of mankind, I 
think of the old legend of the death-struck 
city. 

"A great Eastern city it was, besieged by 
fierce enemies, and about to send forth its war- 
riors to sweep away, as with a whirlwind rush, 
the hosts of the invader. From the camp of 
the enemy, however, there issued a magician, 
who, by the waving of his wand, conjoined with 
the sorcerer's arts, turned citizen and warrior 
alike — all the inhabitants of the town — into 
stone. Everything in which there was life be- 
came as if dead. Mailed knights, about to 
mount their steeds, full clad for battle, stood 
motionless, with hands upon the pommel of the 
saddle. The infantry drawn up in serried 
ranks, were like so many marble statues. The 
gathering throngs of men, women, and children 
stood as if they were groups carved in stone. 
All were silent, motionless, and powerless — 
the prey of the enemy. 

"Suddenly along the lifeless street, darted a 
youth with radiant countenance, bearing aloft 
a golden trumpet. He stood in the midst of the 
motionless throngs, citizens, and warriors. He 
lifted the trumpet to his lips, and one long 
clear, ringing blast sounded out upon the air. 
Mightier than the arts of the sorcerer, the peal 
of that trumpet of gold! At the sound, life 
leapt once more in the cold veins of death. 
The knights sprang to the saddle. The 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 49 

long line of infantry moved out through the 
city gates. Amid the ringing cheers of the pop- 
ulace, the warriors of the city swept upon the 
invader to his utter overthrow and flight.' ' 

This legend pictures, in part, the conditions 
prevalent at this time in the church of Christ. 
The icy coldness of spiritual inactivity is ap- 
parent in many of her members. Men who 
should be good soldiers of Jesus Christ stand 
like marble statues, struck into utter deadness. 
There they are, inert, motionless, powerless, 
the prey and the laughter of the hosts of evil. 
Oh, for the long, clear call to service, sounded 
forth upon the gospel's trumpet of gold, rous- 
ing to life, to activity, and to conflict, the mil- 
lions of inactive Christian men! God of our 
fathers, and our God, grant us in this conven- 
tion thy Spirit of power, and do thou marshal 
and lead thine hosts to victory, and crown in 
this land and in the world, thy Christ as Lord 
of all! 



IV 

THE BOY AND THE CHUECH 

BY PATTEKSOK DUBOIS 

The subject which. I am asked to bring be- 
fore the men of the church is one both of much 
complexity and of capital importance. Its con- 
structive treatment demands criticism and calls 
for a willingness to face facts. It points to a 
partial relinquishment of traditional ideas and 
methods, and a correspondingly partial recon- 
struction of our organizations for religious ed- 
ucation. 

There is one respect, at least, in which the 
church and the Head of the church seem al- 
ways to have been more or less at variance. 
Jesus, in the presence of men, appears never to 
have lost his educational consciousness; the 
church, especially our modern Protestant 
Church, seems never to have fully gained such 
a consciousness. 

Whatever we may say about the adult, it is 
certain that the church has never made ade- 
quate effort to understand or to provide for the 
child or the youth. Its point of view is that 
of the adult. It has neither provided for the 

50 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 51 

child's or youth's natural environment and em- 
ployment, nor for his being let properly alone 
and protected in his critical time of self-wrest- 
ling. The immediate blame rests chiefly on the 
home, it is true, but the church is a potent influ- 
ence over the home in such matters. Too often 
the church, in a proper zeal, but mistaken judg- 
ment, minimizes the home duty by drawing the 
youngsters too constantly from it, to gather in 
"meetings. ' ' The church has a duty to the boy 
in his own home. 

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as 
the boy. The child is not a minature man ; the 
adolescent youth is a very different creature 
from either child or man. 

I am rather fond of quoting that far-sighted 
statement of Michelet's, "No consecrated ab- 
surdity would have stood its ground if the man 
had not silenced the objection of the child." 
Let us add also the youth. And I am sorry to 
say that the church, as well as the home, has 
been only too great a factor in this repression. 

This "objection of the child" is often but a 
semi-conscious assertion of the rights of per- 
sonal development ; that of the adolescent youth 
is much more concretely and acutely felt. 
Truly, ' i the birth of a child is the imprisonment 
of a soul." Standing, as I long have, for the 
protection and emancipation of the young child, 
I nevertheless believe that adolescence is the 
most complicated, and a not less educationally 
critical, period of life. 



52 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

How deeply has the church realized its re- 
sponsibility under such conditions? The rec- 
ord, notwithstanding our progress, is too much 
one of misfits and maladjustments — alike gro- 
tesque and serious. 

Except in rare individual cases, the adult 
point of view has ruled from pulpit to primary 
room. Little children whose right it is to re- 
ceive impressions chiefly atmospherically are 
put to Book abreast with their elders and dazed 
with a far-fetched "symbolism" or with ab- 
stractions altogether foreign to childhood expe- 
rience. We wonder why the adolescent boy 
and girl have fled the school, not realizing that 
we ought rather to wonder if it were otherwise. 
As Dr. McKinley has beautifully shown, the 
parable of the Prodigal Son is but the natural 
allegory of adolescence. It is the maladjust- 
ment that the youth flees ; he is escaping from 
the cling of the withering leaf of childhood in 
search of a place for the pressing bud of the 
new boy. During the eight or ten years from 
the age of thirteen onward, he must be both 
met and let alone. Here is your problem. 

Again, in the young people ? s societies we are 
making premature "leaders" of children and 
youth, and prematurely pressing the reticent 
age to declare itself. We are taking out of the 
school functions which rightly belong to it. We 
are "training" our teachers to a knowledge of 
the child and yet, in effect, prescribing that 
"silencing the objection of the child" in our 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 53 

curricula, our unnatural groupings, our bookish- 
ness, our lack of manual and physical methods, 
our shyness of topical breadth, our ingeniously 
absurd acrostics and initial letters, our biblical 
limitations, our catechism memorizing, alas ! our 
very hymns and prayers. In practice we thus 
train the teachers away from their required 
theory. 

Now as to the church's adult point of view. 
Let me give right here a concrete evidence of 
it. Admitting exceptions you will see that the 
child is, by our usual practice, a nobody. 

You pastors and clerks of session or other 
elders tell me, When you receive parents into 
your churches by certificate, how often do you 
find the names of their baptized children re- 
corded as the blank directs on the back of the 
certificate? Tell me again, Ought not their 
names to be on the face of it? How are you 
officially to know that you have new baptized 
children in your oversight? What were they 
baptized for ? The infant baptisms are annually 
reported to presbytery. Do you know the num- 
ber of such children that you dismiss? Does 
the Assembly ask you to report the total bap- 
tized children, as it does the communicants? 
No. Infants are virtually baptized into official 
oblivion. Is not our practice in effect a denial 
of our doctrine? But these are only children 
to a church dominated by the adult point of 
view. 

We are fond of repeating the apostle's ad- 



54 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

vice to bring up our children in "the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord." But how much 
study have we given to what constitutes nur- 
ture? Are we not too prone to assume that our 
adult formulas and experiences are nourishing 
to the child soul simply because they are so to 
the adult? How fairly has the church studied 
the spiritual hygiene? To say that the Spirit 
will do the work is to insult Him who has given 
us powers and tools to work with. It is to 
throw back into his face his gift of our powers. 
It is indolent and irreverent. 

Enough has been said to show that the church 
has hardly made a breach in the wall which 
screens the natures of childhood and youth from 
common or careless sight. The inference is 
that it has been derelict and stands accountable. 

True we have made strides in the right direc- 
tion. We have able writers not only on early 
childhood, but on adolescence, and especially on 
the growing boy. It is this last phase of young 
life to which I particularly refer in this paper 
— limits forbidding anything further. Just in 
brief, and for suggestion let us summarize a 
few leading characteristics of this turbulent and 
topsy-turvy era of adolescence. 

Authorities differ in their sub-division of ado- 
lescent periods and their concomitant character- 
istics, and most boys differ at some points with 
the authorities. Dr. Samuel B. Haslett makes 
this good general statement: "Adolescence is 
in a real sense a new birth . . . The in- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION* 55 

dividual is born at this time into possession of 
new bodily powers and functions, new lines 
of activity for his increased muscular force, 
new social spheres and increasing demands up- 
on his social capabilities, new emotional expe- 
riences that widen his life and add to its im- 
port ; new thoughts, ideals, ambitions, and ten- 
dencies that enrich life. ' ' 

And Dr. Forbush, concerning the emergence 
from childhood: "The last nascencies of the 
instincts, the completion of the habits, the psy- 
chical crisis, the infancy of the will, the birth of 
the social nature, the disparity between the pas- 
sions and the appetites, and the judgment and 
self-control, and the fact that for normal and 
abnormal boys alike, this is the close of the 
plastic age, make this the most critical period 
of life and one which should converge upon it- 
self the wisest and strongest social and moral 
influences." 

These are conditions which the church must 
meet. Now a little more in particular : Author- 
ities divide adolescence variously, but usu- 
ally into three periods covering ten or twelve 
years from the age of twelve up. Some draw 
lines at twelve, sixteen, eighteen, twenty-four; 
others at twelve, fifteen, twenty, twenty-four. 
Some label these as times of ferment, crisis, 
reconstruction; others, as nascent, middle, ad- 
vanced ; still others, as physical, neutral, social 
or vocational ; others again, as time when youth 
seeks freedom, learns the unity and meaning of 



56 



THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 



life, comes to reconstruction and social adjust- 
ment. There is a general agreement that the 
middle period (about sixteen) is the critical and 
focal psychological point. The instinct and 
motor level is supplanted by higher levels of 
power. There is quick depression and quick 
rising. Dr. Forbush calls twelve and sixteen 
the points for personal work, "the former for 
acquaintance and association, the latter for rest- 
lessness and doubt." The reconstruction pe- 
riod of sixteen to eighteen will need the friend- 
ship formed at twelve, and a true manly friend- 
ship is all important. 

At the beginning of adolescence the sexes 
separate. The club forms. Physical energy 
waxes. Then comes an era of discussion, en- 
larged views, confutation, and a feeling for in- 
dependence. A little later, emotions reach to- 
ward their height of storm and stress. Absorp- 
tion and reception give way to construction. 
Self-estrangement from childhood naturally re- 
sulted in strange performances. Now, like Paul, 
the middle youth is hunting himself in the seclu- 
sion of the wilderness. He is getting ready for 
membership in society. He is full of schemes, 
disappointments, failures, conquests. He is 
glimpsing the meaning of life. He is acquiring 
orientation. A few years of this turbulent 
groping and the prodigal feels the homing in- 
stinct, becoming more stable and seeing more 
clearly ahead. Maturity takes on its foreshade 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 57 

now. The sexes renew an interest in each 
other. 

It is unnecessary, as indeed it is impossible, 
here to do more than thus barely indicate these 
complex conditions as a reason why the church, 
in its Sunday schools and young people's so- 
cieties, is wondering at its inefficiency. The 
church in its formulations and disciplines and 
expectations has made little or no account of 
the very important matter of personal and tem- 
peramental, to say nothing of developmental, 
differences either of which alone accounts for 
much that has seemed unaccountable. 

Letting go of the boy and the youth, for the 
moment, let us ask what we are here for. The 
pastor of a very large and remarkably energetic 
church said to me not long ago that we have 
a great many organizations within our church 
and yet we do not get what we want. Most of 
us know how true this is. Most of us will agree 
that novelty is an element of success and that 
old forms of associations die to give rise to new 
forms. And yet beyond question the average 
individual church is over-organized. The ques- 
tion is, Do we now want another organization? 
The answer lies in the answer to another ques- 
tion : Is there any serious describable weakness 
in the church which a new organization might 
help to overcome with more hope of success than 
can be done in any other way? 

Let us see. "What is the greatest drawback 
to the progress of Christianity? Is it the sa- 



58 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

loon, the trust? Is it Buddhism, Confucianism, 
Mohammedanism, Cannibalism? Is it alcohol, 
or the cigarette? No; it is primarily none of 
these things. It is your personal life and mine. 
More specifically, it is your morals and mine. 

The church has put too small an estimate on 
morals — which is simply the relation of man to 
man as members of a divinely ordered society. 
We have been satisfied to talk too much about 
"spirituality" without knowing exactly what 
we meant by this. (I am not discussing the 
atonement or what is often called "the plan 
of salvation." That is another subject.) We 
do know that Jesus explicitly told a rich young 
man, "If thou wouldst enter into life, keep the 
commandments." The one unobserved duty of 
that man was that of social equity or justice, 
which practically included all of the last six 
commandments. He could not enter into life 
neglecting his social morality. The rendering 
unto Caesar of that which is Caesar's is an es- 
sential element of the rendering unto God of 
that which is God's. 

Again, see how the epistles teem with moral 
injunctions as though the writers were not 
afraid that somebody might, by laying great 
stress on morals, become guilty of "mere mo- 
rality" — of which the church has made a bogy 
and has been so unduly afraid. 

Now, is it not time for us to make a visible 
organized effort in the interest of a finer moral 
discrimination and of a truer moral courage? 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 



59 



Men are more closely affiliated with the busi- 
ness of the world and hence more liable to its 
subtle temptations than women. The line be- 
tween the church and the world, between relig- 
ious and secular, becomes more and more shad- 
owy as all dividing lines do in a healthy social 
evolution. When a man is no longer able to 
separate his business from his religion he will 
be attaining to the sort of Christianity which 
Christ was recommending to the young man 
who had great possessions. 

There are many men's societies in our church 
quite rightly with different aims and methods. 
But my contention is that another organization 
in the church at large is only justified by a 
dominating fundamental idea which most ap- 
propriately men should carry with them from 
the church into the strenuous inter-activity of 
the world's business. This dominating idea I 
would phase as the Social Conscience. By this 
I mean that the ultimate practical purpose of 
the organization as distinct from what is known 
as the rule of "service," is to whet the con- 
science to a keener and more constant concep- 
tion of the moral relation of man to man by 
reason of his membership in a social world. It 
stands for the moral function of religion — 
Christianity being the only religion demanding 
true morality. 

It makes little difference whether the individ- 
ual organization throws its emphasis upon mere 
sociability or upon civics, or upon instructional 



60 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

courses, or Bible or mission study, — the ethical 
idea should always give the occasion its flavor. 
This does not mean that every paper that is 
read or conversation that is held or lecture that 
is heard should discuss ethics as such. It is 
rather that the organization should influence the 
world Chris tward by a directer, more inwoven 
practical touch, than is possible to pulpit, Bible 
class, or prayer-meeting. This does not mean 
street preaching or even the personal effort to 
bring some one to church, but rather by moral 
fruitage, to make the world see the Christ and 
admit that the church is worth belonging to. 

We hear a great deal said now-a-days about 
personal work in bringing others to Christ. The 
sort of moral blindness and moral timidity that 
we see in the lives of most Christians may well 
make one wonder why the non-church-going 
should respond readily to such personal ap- 
peals. Do we not owe a "personal work" to 
our fellow Christians in the matter of the mend- 
ing of their morals ? And if so, can we not by 
organization help ourselves to mend our own? 
Is not this really the surest way to make the 
world covet a church membership ? 

When William Penn organized the colony 
of Pennsylvania he called it a "holy experi- 
ment." Beligion, with him, was a matter re- 
sulting in political and social morality. If we 
were saturated with this moving idea of the 
Social Conscience to the extent of being con- 
trolled by it, would not our civilization take on 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 61 

a very different aspect? We should be more 
concerned to think any proposition through to 
its moral result just as the business man tries to 
think a proposition through to the financial re- 
sult. We are generally too undiscerning or too 
cowardly to look far ahead for moral outcomes. 
While I believe that a men's organization 
should exist for a specific purpose, apart from 
attendance upon church services, prayer meet- 
ings or Sunday schools, it is very important for 
all such societies to meet for the study of 
Christianity, historical or practical, as Bible or 
mission classes, on Sunday, and in connection 
with the school as such. And this brings me 
back to take up our adolescent youth, who I 
believe may be saved to the school and to the 
church through the men's Brotherhood meeting 
as a Bible class, as I shall show a little later. 
Although it is most usual, as I have said, to 
divide adolescence into three periods of devel- 
opment, I want for purposes of discussion here 
to draw a line through it about the middle or 
end of the eighteenth year. At this age, child- 
hood and early youth are shaken off and any 
school continuance of the same general curricu- 
lum, discipline, or other methodic treatment of 
the youth, is likely to produce a revolt. More- 
over, at this age he is straining to sight his 
manhood. He is orienting himself manward. 
He prefers to associate with fellows a little 
older rather than younger than himself. 
Though I do not speak from actual experiment, 



62 



THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 



I cannot but believe as the result of much in- 
vestigation and discussion with experts, that 
the youth in this later adolescent stage would 
frequently accept the compliment of admission 
to a men's Brotherhood Sunday class even 
though under certain limitations of member- 
ship. 

Full-grown men ought to be glad to have this 
sub-manhood with them. It would be good for 
them to keep touch with the later " teens' ' 
and to treat them with equal respect. The ad- 
vantages to the young fellows would be that 
they would come into the freedom and latitude 
of men 's thought yet under a certain controlling 
guidance of maturity. They would also escape 
the felt ignominy of being in a little group, 
perhaps under a lady teacher, precisely as they 
were in childhood or earlier youth when they 
were undifferentiated from other classes of girls 
and lesser boys around them. And again the 
reticent, striving, secretive, but not irreligious, 
adolescent could be at once more secluded and 
more stimulated toward that social conscience 
which ought now to assume the form of a defi- 
nite will control. The boy's expansion would 
be recognized, his maturity visible as a goal, 
and present conceit unoffensively dampened. 

Some boys of seventeen or eighteen and up- 
ward would hesitate to go in with men in their 
early or even later maturity. But there would 
be no better educational exercise for the men 
than to take the boys into their Sunday sittings, 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 63 

treat them not patronizingly nor as overseers, 
but as companions, without cognizance of age 
limitations. Boys of this period like to asso- 
ciate with those who are slightly superior — 
it makes them superior. But they must not be 
forced into conspicuous positions or made to 
declare themselves unduly. 

This means the reorganization of the male 
Sunday school from the age of seventeen or 
eighteen upward. All small classes of youths 
of this period should be cleared from the floor 
and associated with the men of the Brother- 
hood. The moral idea of the Brotherhood, al- 
ready pointed out, will help to give fixity and 
trend to the moral and spiritual unrest of the 
ambitious adolescent youth by suggestion and 
in direction. This is that partial reorganiza- 
tion of Sunday school of which I spoke. It is 
offered as a general proposition, with full 
knowledge of its limitations. 

So much for the big boy. As to the little 
one, the church must stir itself to take on a true 
educational consciousness, after the manner of 
the Master, meet the issues fairly, give tradi- 
tion the go-by, get away from the stultifying 
adult point of view, sacrifice vested interests 
where necessary, and nurture the hungry boy 
with a healthy atmosphere and assimilable food. 
Small natural groups are in order here. In 
short, we must command boy nature at any age 
by obeying boy nature at that age. 

A closing word. A Christian Brotherhood 



64 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

must be brotherly to all men. It must be a 
"chosen people" for the world's salvation as 
well as for its own. I reiterate that the 
Brotherhood should influence the world by a 
directer and more intimate practical touch than 
that of the pulpit, prayer-meeting, or Sunday 
school. Any one who has sat in convention 
with philanthropic and charity organizations 
must have noted how keenly they probe their 
problems, as compared with the average church- 
worker — just as devoted, in one sense, to the 
same humane interests. With this modern 
probing spirit the men of the church ought to 
organize to carry a "new conscience and a new 
set of virtues " into the mart of the world's 
business and carry the boys with them. 

Let us dine; let us be sociable; let us lec- 
ture and be lectured to; let us be athletic; let us 
study missions, the Bible, church history, ethics, 
literature, accountancy, civics; let us promote 
the Sunday and week-day services; but let us 
stand for a more discerning, a more valorous 
morality, a more constant public spirit, a more 
efficient Social Conscience. 

What might not the men of the church thus 
accomplish in ushering in the reign of justice, 
in purifying and dignifying politics, in extirpa- 
ting fireside gambling, in cleansing the tongue, 
in raising the moral standards of business, in 
advancing law and order and good citizenship, 
in suppressing vice, in exemplifying a true pa- 
triotism in uplifting the ex-prisoner, in protect- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 65 

ing child life, and the juvenile court, in expos- 
ing the industrial conspiracy against children 
and influencing legislation for this our own 
most valuable " asset of the nation"! 

Finally, let us draw the boys to look our way, 
by seeing from their point of view and by first 
looking their way. This was our Lord's way. 
Let us live for the rising world. 

5 



V 

THE CHUKCH AND THE MAN 

BY CHARLES S. HOLT 

When a layman undertakes to discuss two of 
the largest things in the world under any limi- 
tation as to time, it is quite certain that the re- 
sult will be both incomplete and one-sided, so 
that more must be supplied than can possibly 
be expressed, if any good is to come of it all. 

Nor is there room here for detailed discus- 
sion of methods or for incident and illustration. 
It must be plain thoughts, plainly expressed; 
and the value of the address, if it turns out to 
have any, will be found I am sure in your think- 
ing afterward of all the good things that the 
speaker failed to say. 

Our subject naturally falls into two broad 
lines of inquiry, either of them too large for 
treatment here. Since we must pass over one 
of them let it be the first and more obvious, 
viz: 

Why does the church need men? It is a ques- 
tion often asked, and perhaps increasingly in 
these later years. Let me barely enumerate 
some of the answers. 

66 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 67 

Primarily, of course, the church needs men 
because they have souls for which Christ died. 
But from the standpoint of church life, men 
mean numbers, — more people to do things, — 
a consideration of no small importance. They 
also mean virility, and a better balancing of 
church forces; and this not in disparagement 
but in supplement of the splendid work of the 
women. They also mean leadership and moral 
support in the community; business method, en- 
terprise and sagacity; money, which is more 
and more coming to be seen as a useful servant 
of God, though a bad master of men ; and many 
lines of service which are possible only to men. 

Think what it would be if — let me rather say 
what it will be when — the delegates to this con- 
vention go home and throw themselves heart 
and soul into the work of their respective 
churches ! And when one remembers that this 
is a representative body, the imagination is 
staggered at the thought of all those who are 
here represented doing the same thing. 

But we must hasten to consider a little more 
fully the other branch of the subject, "Why do 
men need the church? Or, in a more fruitful 
form of statement, how shall we make them see 
that they need it? 

The appeal of the church to the men of this 
generation is no longer that of authority. Even 
in other countries and other communions where 
it is supposed to be strongest, this grip is visi- 
bly weakening; and in Protestant America the 



68 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

church must justify itself to men as any other 
enterprise would do, if it is to expect their 
cooperation and support 

The justification is not found in ecclesiastical 
politics or in theological debate. Conservative 
or liberal, right or wrong, regret or rejoice in 
it as we may, this whole class of motives has 
largely lost its appeal. 

Nor can the church successfully compete with 
rival influences along the lines of mere pleas- 
ure and self gratification. The gospel of a good 
time has been quite sufficiently tried and with 
results that are far from satisfactory. This is 
one of the points where there is great room for 
misunderstanding which I have no time to clear 
away. I am not preaching asceticism. A good 
time is one of the "things that accompany sal- 
vation ;" but unless there is a definite spiritual 
purpose behind the good time, we shall be dis- 
tanced before the race is fairly begun. There 
can be no more disastrous folly than to suppose 
that the church can defeat its competitors mere- 
ly with their own weapons. 

Affirmatively, men need the church : 

Because it is a place of Salvation. The gos- 
pel message to a lost world was peculiarly en- 
trusted to the church, and it is one of the glories 
of our Presbyterianism that always (as we 
have heard from an earlier speaker), and espe- 
cially of late years it has recognized and re- 
sponded to the evangelistic motive. But I must 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 69 

not start on this theme or I shall never get 
away from it to anything else. 

Many men after they reach this stage seem 
to want nothing more of the church. But after 
the soul is saved (aside from the normal func- 
tions of instruction and growth) many men 
need the church as a place of Refuge. I am 
not concerned at this point with the tramp and 
the outcast, but I have in mind the relation of 
the church to the problem of the hall bedroom, 
the cheap theater, the dance hall, the saloon and 
the gambling den ; to the temptations that grow 
out of loneliness and monotony and the drudg- 
ery of petty interests ; to the lowering of ideals 
and the loosening grip of spiritual things. 
Those of us whose church work lies in the board- 
ing house sections of our great cities know best, 
but all of us in city and town and country alike 
need to know better, the momentous importance 
of this work and the singular fitness of the 
church to perform it. There are men here to- 
day who owe their rescue from moral shipwreck 
to the shelter they have found in the church of 
the Living God. 

It also appeals to men as a place of Fellow- 
ship. In Christian life and service more than 
elsewhere it is not good for man to be alone. 
Our Lord made no mistake when he sent out 
his great deputations by two and two, and in 
every succeeding age the world has witnessed 
the power of Christian companionship, — nega- 
tively as an off-set to the colossal dangers of 



70 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

companionship that is not Christian, and posi- 
tively as empowering two for acts of service 
which neither perhaps would undertake alone. 

What inspiration lies in the thought of the 
apostolic partnerships, and those of the Cru- 
saders and the Eef ormation heroes ! It is tonic 
and steadying to find ourselves associated with 
a body of men of like passions with ourselves, 
but all pursuing the same high ends and 
prompted by loyalty to the same Master. 

The man who seeks the higher life without 
such fellowship is as tragically absurd as a 
soldier in the enemy's country campaigning all 
alone, and reporting occasionally to the general 
government, but never to his comrades or to 
his regimental or company commander. 

Beyond all this, the church is a place of Serv- 
ice. It is probable that we have laid, I will not 
say too great, but too exclusive, emphasis upon 
the invitation, "Come thou with us and we will 
do thee good." The most significant fact in 
the moral world to-day is the growth of the 
spirit of service. More and more men, and for 
more and more of their time, are aspiring to 
achieve something beyond their own gratifica- 
tion or even a passport to heaven. The motto, 
"Saved to serve," is no longer, if it ever was, 
the exclusive possession of any body of Chris- 
tians. 

We are talking to men as they are : well mean- 
ing, often unstable, occasionally in earnest for 
the higher things, then swept away by the tu- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 71 

multuous pressure of the lower, more or less 
selfish, possibly prejudiced, perhaps unreason- 
able, but generally sincere, and in their best 
moods eager to be and do something worth 
while — in short, ourselves: all of us church 
members, nearly all more or less interested in 
the work of the church, none of us what we 
feel we ought to be in our relations with it. 

How shall we persuade first ourselves and 
then others who are a little farther outside, that 
the church is a worthy place for the investment 
of our life and influence in the service of hu- 
manity, where we may give our best and utter- 
most without stint and without fear of waste? 

For one thing, it ought to appeal to business 
men that as a mere matter of economy in opera- 
tion, the church is the greatest of labor savers. 
How wasteful and short-sighted it is for one 
who is anxious to help his fellow-men to set 
about it alone, or to organize new machinery 
when the church is ready to his hand, with the 
general and preliminary work largely done, and 
adaptable with infinite flexibility to new needs 
and new methods, for any purpose that is 
worthy to be undertaken in the name of Christ ! 

Then, the church appeals to men's sense of 
the heroic. The thought is familiar as applied 
to individual Christian heroes; the names of 
Livingstone and Patteson and Zinzendorf and 
Huss have been the inspiration of multitudes 
of knightly deeds for Christ's sake. 

Rightly considered, no less epic and impres- 



72 



THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 



sive is the corporate life of the church, from 
the day when those few first disciples stood be- 
tween it and failure. Think of it as an enter- 
prise that must create the demand it seeks to 
supply ; a witness for higher things in the over- 
whelming rush and turmoil of the lower ; a gal- 
lant fight against tremendous odds; the little 
flock to which it is the Father's good pleasure 
to give the kingdom. Who that loves a brave 
battle and a fair field can stand unmoved by 
the way-side, as the sacramental host marches 
out to its campaign in the enemy's country? 

Again, the church offers men unequalled op- 
portunities to deal with large issues in a large 
way. It is a popular notion that the church is 
narrow in itself and in its influence upon its 
followers, but except as the charge may be jus- 
tified by our unfaithfulness it rests upon insin- 
cerity or ignorance. On the contrary, no 
agency of the human spirit has such splendor 
of breadth, and variety, and adaptation to 
every taste and capacity. Nowhere else as here 
can one man serve humanity through architec- 
ture, another through music, or philosophy, or 
love for children, or civic zeal, or sympathy 
for the unfortunate. No other institution so 
lays under tribute all the powers and affections 
of the whole man. 

It is said that one of the Rothschilds in his 
advancing years was urged to lay down the bur- 
dens of business in order to enjoy life. His 
reply was, "If any man will tell me where to 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 73 

find greater enjoyment than in making money 
on a large scale, I should be glad to know it." 
In the name of Christ and his church I would 
accept this challenge. 

As a mere matter of bigness, the church 
counts her financial operations in millions ; and 
we handle our money twice, first taking it in 
and then paying it out. 

If one is ambitious to grapple with great 
problems, I point him to the church as she is 
called upon to deal with intemperance, immi- 
gration, Mormonism, the labor question, or the 
evangelization of the world. 

Perhaps the church has been at fault in not 
making larger demands upon her men. It may 
be that those who are accustomed to deal on a 
broad scale would respond more readily to 
such calls than to the policy of driblets and 
hand-to-mouth, which we have too often pur- 
sued. 

Aside from material and social problems, the 
church deals largely and not in fragments with 
spiritual forces. Its field is the whole of human 
life, its material not only the body and mind, 
but the marvelously complex and delicate soul 
of man ; it touches this life and the life to come ; 
its sweep takes in the universe, as one has said, 
from the center of gravity to the throne of God. 

And because the church enables us to "see 
life steadily and see it whole," it is a place 
for the correction of false estimates and the 
setting of things in their right proportion. It 



74 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

is still true as of old that we are envious of 
the prosperity of the wicked until we go into 
the sanctuary of God. Many a man has learned 
in the church as nowhere else the saving lesson 
of how to put first things first. 

I venture to believe that the church is to be, 
more than it ever yet has been, the instrument 
for the adjustment of antagonisms. We are 
grateful for what is already done and doing for 
the removal of religious differences. Our 
Presbyterian name covers to-day those who 
lately were separated by a divisive label; and 
before another convention, even the Presbyte- 
rian name may not be broad enough for our 
Canadian brethren. 

It seems probable, too, that in the church will 
be found the true adjustment of most if not all 
social and economic questions. The church has 
often been charged with petty and selfish indi- 
vidualism and with neglect of the social organ- 
ism. On the other hand, I heard a great 
preacher say the other day that the chief peril 
of modern civilization is the suppressed and 
undiscovered individual. There is no time here 
to justify my confident belief that these, like 
other opposites, can best be reconciled, and I 
am inclined to believe can only be reconciled 
through the mediation of a church which grasps 
the largeness of its mission and understands 
the almighty power of its Leader. An effective 
beginning has already been made with the labor 
question and much more is to follow. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 75 

I must allude also in passing to the church 
as a place for the connection and correlation 
of things that are too often disjoined. It fur- 
nishes the only religious sanction to ethics and 
philanthropy and civic loyalty; and why any 
one should desire to work in any of these lines 
without the help of Christ and his church passes 
my comprehension. What is possibly even 
more important, the church is the place where 
religion may be, yes, must be, infused and satu- 
rated with the ethical and philanthropic spirit, 
the ideals and the practice of righteousness. 

Again, the church offers to men a sound 
working philosophy of life. I say a working 
philosophy; for perhaps we may never arrive 
at a scholastic interpretation of the universe 
that will be final and satisfactory. At least we 
have not yet reached it. Within my own life- 
time certain well-defined phases of rationalism, 
materialism and agnosticism have "had their 
day and ceased to be"; not in the sense that 
they have been abandoned by most of those who 
have once adopted them, but that new thinkers 
are taking up something else. Some of us won- 
der whether we are now entering upon a period 
of philosophic pantheism. 

But few of us are philosophers, and very few 
of life's great problems are to be settled by sci- 
entific formulae. A tried and sufficient theory 
of practical living, that imparts courage in dif- 
ficulty, sweetens trial and disappointment, re- 
bukes selfishness, stimulates to righteousness, 



76 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

gives assurance of hope, and inspires and en- 
ables a man to go out and do his best, — where 
can we find it as in the church of Jesus Christ? 

We owe to our distinguished friend, Ralph 
Connor, a complete and epigrammatic statement 
of the proposition, in his account of a Free- 
thinkers ' Club, demoralized and put to flight by 
a young home missionary, whose formula was 
this : i i He let them doubt, but insisted on their 
having something positive to live by." 

Once more, the church, as no other institution, 
links the present with the past and the future. 
The impressive sense of historical continuity 
which has been considered the special posses- 
sion of the Roman Catholic Church, belongs to 
us Protestants, it seems to me, in a truer, be- 
cause a more spiritual, sense. It stirs the im- 
agination to realize how every man who enters 
into covenant with the church is caught up in 
the sweep and momentum of all the Christian 
centuries, and becomes a partaker of the fellow- 
ship of the apostles and prophets, the martyrs 
and confessors, a member of the Communion of 
Saints, and has his name appended to that ma- 
jestic roll of heroes of the faith, in the cate- 
gory of those for whom God has provided some 
better thing, that they without us should not be 
made perfect. 

If the church takes hold upon the past, it 
also reaches forward, — yes, beyond the process 
of the suns. It is one of the things that cannot 
be shaken, that has remained and ever will re- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 77 

main, until we come into the better country 
where there are no churches because it is all 
one church, and no temple, because the Lord 
God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of 
it. 

Contrast the church with all other organiza- 
tions, however noble and serviceable ; with civic 
federations and charity organizations and set- 
tlement work and temperance societies and 
Young Men's Christian Associations, — and I 
believe heartily in most of them, — and see how 
some of them are drawn closer and closer into 
the very structure and fellowship of the church 
itself, while others fail or shift in their mis- 
sion, and others, temporary in their nature, 
have already become or are destined one by one 
to become obsolete. 

"But Lord, thy church is praying yet, 
A thousand years the same. * * 

What manly man of high ideals, desiring to 
invest himself for the largest returns to human- 
ity, would not be eager to link his life with such 
an organization? And yet — and yet — there is 
another side to the picture. 

Have you been conscious, as I was speaking, 
of a certain sense of unreality about it all, a 
feeling that fine words and beautiful thoughts 
are easy, but actual life is different? Have you 
perhaps been half-consciously saying to your- 
selves, "Oh, if I could find such a church, how 



78 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

gladly would I throw myself into its activities 
and spend and be spent in its service; but the 
dream is not realized in experience"? 

Let me say in all kindness, if you have not 
felt something of this, you are not awake yet. 
The man who has followed me with assent, per- 
haps even with enthusiasm, and who shall go 
out to-morrow and try to enlist himself or 
others in such an enterprise as I have attempted 
to describe, may be destined to a rude disap- 
pointment. We need not adopt the attitude of 
hostility and contempt, but if we should can- 
didly go over the claims made for the church, 
point by point, and compare them with actual 
conditions, every thoughtful man knows how 
far short we should fall. 

It is but lately that our own church in any 
adequate and effective way has remembered 
that it was put in trust with the gospel, and 
aroused itself to the duty and privilege of win- 
ning men to the acceptance of Christ. 

Instead of refuge and fellowship, how many 
times it has offered indifference and cold for- 
mality, or triviality and pettiness, or perhaps 
turned over the whole business to the Young 
Men's Christian Association and the Salvation 
Army. And how many of the men who try to 
engage in this work at all are the wrong kind, 
men who seem not to have learned the lesson 
which, as a great newspaper said the other day, 
the church needs to learn, that it is possible to 
be pious without being foolish. How many of 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 79 

them are men who will not even take pains to 
be personally attractive. 

There was something more than mere bitter- 
ness and irreverence in the reply of a distin- 
guished lawyer when asked whether he would 
prefer to live in heaven or in hell. "When I 
look, ? ' said he, ' i at most of the men who claim 
to be going to heaven, and compare them with 
my friends who seem to be headed the other 
way, I am forced to the conclusion that while 
heaven has doubtless the more agreeable cli- 
mate, hell enjoys the better society." 

Shame on us, brethren, for all the splendid 
fellows who are outside of the church through 
our indifference and unfaithfulness ! 

As a place of service, too often we have seen 
our heroism and enlistment fade before a Sun- 
day headache or a theater engagement; our 
flexibility of method stiffening into routine and 
conventionality, and the suggestion of a new 
plan or field of endeavor frightening us away; 
our estimates of relative values inverted; our 
ethics and public spirit relegated to outside 
agencies and then their absence from the church 
made an excuse for staying out ourselves ; and 
instead of large issues, our energies devoted 
to small personalities and trivial criticisms. 
Saddest of all, where righteousness and purity 
of life should most prevail, there has been too 
much complacent self-seeking and unabashed 
commercialism and some times even plain dis- 
honesty and rottenness. 



80 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

In the face of these facts we can hardly ex- 
pect cordial enlistment by outsiders. The crit- 
ical point of this whole discussion is, What shall 
be the attitude toward the facts and toward the 
church, of those who profess to value the ends 
that the church stands for? In other words, 
Who is responsible and what are we going to do 
about it? Shall we give up the ends in despair 
and abandon the purpose of service? Or shall 
we rather hear the call as a challenge to our 
manhood to enter in and make the church what 
it ought to be? Least logical and sensible of all 
is the course that many of us seem to have pur- 
sued, of professing continued loyalty, yet with- 
holding our personal effort to bring the church 
to the place where she can do what she was sent 
into the world to do. 

The fault is not in the plan. No reasonable 
man can doubt that a working church ought to 
be all that I have tried to indicate, or that such 
a working church would be also triumphantly 
a winning church. 

I go further and assert that if we should cut 
loose from the church and set about construct- 
ing a substitute with a view to the best and most 
effective service for humanity, we should find 
at the end that we had reproduced the church 
substantially as Christ gave it to us. It is true 
of her as Voltaire said about God : If she did 
not exist it would be necessary to invent her. 
Every substitute that has been tried has failed 
exactly in proportion as it has departed from 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 81 

the divine model, and the experiment has usu- 
ally been attended with moral deterioration and 
disaster to those who have tried it. 

It is a workable plan. It has worked at many 
times in the past, and it is working to-day in 
many places. 

If then the plan is good, the fault must be 
with the operation, and brethren, we are the 
operators; not its enemies but its professed 
friends. See the vicious circle in which we 
move. We fail in our loyalty and devotion, and 
the church, weakened by our failure, falls short 
of her opportunity ; then her weakness is made 
the excuse for further neglect, and gradually 
moral fiber disintegrates and flabbiness, formal- 
ity, and fruitlessness fall alike upon the church 
and upon our own souls. 

It is easy to overlook our own share in the 
catastrophe. "When the judges of England met 
to adopt an address of congratulation to Queen 
Victoria upon her jubilee, a committee reported 
a draft which contained the expression, " Con- 
scious as we are of our own shortcomings"; 
whereupon Mr. Justice Bowen moved an 
amendment, to make the statement accord with 
the facts, as follows: " Conscious as we are 
of one another's shortcomings." 

If we had money invested in an institution 
that was thus mismanaged, would we act about 
it as we do about this institution in which we 
profess to have invested all that is high and 
worthy in our lives? Would we not rather say, 



82 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

"The business is sound if it is properly run; I 
will take hold and do what I can to help run it 
right"? 

My plea is for individual loyalty to the 
church from the inside ; that we stop criticising 
and go to work ; that we clean up our own share 
of the responsibility, and resolve not to find 
fault with any other until we are sure that we 
ourselves are doing our best. 

If it may lead to such a result, this conven- 
tion may mark a turning point to which many 
generations shall look back with gratitude as 
the beginning of a mighty movement of the 
whole church, up to the ideal and standard of 
her Master. 

For of course I have left until the last the 
mention of the church's chief asset and attrac- 
tion and appeal to the men of this and every 
generation, — the man Christ Jesus, who is also 
the divine resource and courage and strength 
of those who are overborne by her problems and 
conflicts. While we have him all things are 
ours. 

I shall not soon forget a humble workingman 
of Koman Catholic training, who had been 
drawn under the influence of Dowieism into a 
sweet and consistent Christian life, absorbing 
the good, and apparently untouched by the evil 
of that singular movement. When the crash 
came last summer, and the factions were bit- 
terly assailing each other and shattering faith 
in the genuineness of their Christian profes- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION $3 

sions, his deep perplexity of spirit showed itself 
in his face as I met him day by day. At length 
I said to him, "Bobert, it is a good thing that 
we are not told to believe on either Dowie or 
Voliva, and be saved"; and a bright smile shot 
through the quick- springing tears as he replied 
in broken English: "Yes, dat's so; Jesus 
Christ, he's all right." It was a homely ex- 
pression of the same thought which the scholar- 
poet has put into his impassioned verse : 

"Yea, through life, death, through sorrow and 
through sinning, 

He will suffice me, for he hath sufficed, 
Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning, 

Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ." 

More and more men are coming to see in per- 
sonal contact with the personal Christ, all that 
makes life worth living, and service a pleasure, 
and self-sacrifice a present and eternal gain. 

All that I have claimed for the church, if 
predicated of Jesus Christ, would command 
your instant and unanimous assent. But what is 
true of him is true of the church, as he planned 
it and as by his grace it shall be. 

I have spoken as if the church had Jesus 
Christ. Nay rather, the church is Jesus Christ. 
She is his body, and what is that but the organ 
by which he manifests and expresses himself to 
the world? Bead the fifth chapter of Ephe- 
sians and see what valuation he sets upon her. 



84 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

He gave himself for her and bought her with 
his own blood. He is jealous of her purity and 
fruitfulness and eager to claim her as his pe- 
culiar treasure, — to present her to himself a 
glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or 
any such thing. 

Whatever may be the attitude of those out- 
side, it seems a plain contradiction in terms to 
profess loyalty to Christ, and yet remain hostile 
or indifferent to the church he loves. It is in 
her that we shall be led by his spirit, walk in 
companionship with him, learn the secret of liv- 
ing by the faith of the Son of God, and find the 
true ideal, not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister, and to give our lives for many. 

Oh, my brethren, whatever else we find or 
miss here, let us not fail to catch the vision of 
our glorified Lord, as he once gave himself for 
the church, and now perpetually gives himself 
to her, and through her to the world, — the full- 
ness of him that filleth all in all. 

And whatever of self-seeking, of indolence, or 
cowardice or worldliness, has obscured his face, 
let it be our high purpose and resolve, each for 
himself, to put it away, so that as we gaze upon 
him we shall be changed into the same image, 
and the world, looking at the church, shall be- 
hold no man but Jesus only. 

Then with new power and purity and enrich- 
ment we shall gladly spend ourselves for her, 
and multitudes who have stood apart will crowd 
her gates with confident devotion and willing 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 85 

service, and our hearts shall cry out to her, as 
to her Master and ours : 

"What were our lives without thee? 
What all our lives to save thee? 
We reck not what we gave thee, 
We will not dare to doubt thee ; 
But ask whatever else, and we will dare!" 



VI 

VICE-PBESIDENT FAIBBANKS' AD- 
DRESS 

Mb. Osborne, Presiding. — One of the best out- 
looks for our country is the fact that for many 
years our chief executive has been not only a 
nominal Christian, but an earnest, active Chris- 
tian, and we have with us to-day Vice-President 
Fairbanks, who is also a brother Christian, and 
we would like to hear from him. 

Vice-President Fairbanks. — Mr. Chairman, 
and Gentlemen of the Presbyterian Church: 
This is a very unexpected pleasure for me. I 
had no thought until late last evening when the 
committee extended to me an invitation to meet 
you, that I should have this pleasure this morn- 
ing. I have not come to you with a formal 
speech, but I have come to you with just a word 
of greeting and good wishes. I am most heart- 
ily in accord with the work in which you are 
engaged, and I am particularly gratified that 
it should have been begun in the Hoosier capital, 
Indianapolis, which has a generous hospitality 
for all creeds. You are welcome, and thrice 
welcome, gentlemen. The great Presbyterian 
Church in whose interests you have gathered 

86 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 87 

here has exercised from the beginning of this 
city up to the present time, the most profound 
influence for good. It has had a profound in- 
fluence over the state, and from ocean to ocean. 
There has been no more propitious time and 
hour in the history of our republic for begin- 
ning such an organization as you are beginning 
here than now. We are going forward in all of 
the avenues of human activity more rapidly 
than at any other time since our ancestors 
landed at Plymouth Eock; we are growing in 
every way, and it is of the utmost importance, 
if we would achieve our highest destiny, that we 
should grow in the principles of our Christian 
religion. It were indeed unfortunate if we 
should grow in material things and fail to grow 
on the Christian side; it were indeed unfortu- 
nate if we should grow only in material things 
and lose sight of those things which make for 
the highest and best civilization. The Brother- 
hood which you have met here to organize, is, 
as I have said before, of great interest to you, 
but yet it is of greater interest to our country ; 
it is an important thing to interest the young 
men of this great church in its mighty work; 
they need to shoulder the responsibility of the 
future, and you perform a double service in 
this, a service to the church, and a service to 
American institutions. 

I congratulate you upon this undertaking, and 
I wish that your most optimistic hopes may be 
fully realized. There is none that can appre- 



88 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

ciate in full measure the beneficent influences 
that flow from an organization of organized ef- 
fort when we come to think of what one man 
may accomplish in a community or state, and 
when we think of this we can appreciate some- 
thing of the mighty achievements of a Brother- 
hood which shall bind within the bonds of fel- 
lowship hundreds of thousands reaching into all 
states, and all sections of our country. No one 
but God Almighty can fully measure the bene- 
fits and results. 

I trust, my friends, that the Presbyterian 
Brotherhood which has its birth here under such 
happy auspices may expand and grow and be- 
come one of the mighty influences for civic 
righteousness in the republic of the United 
States. 

I wish to thank you again for your kind and 
generous greeting, and it would be inopportune 
for me to detain you further from your work 
which has been mapped out for consideration, 
but I wish in conclusion again heartily to con- 
gratulate you upon the splendid work you have 
in hand, and I wish that as the years come and 
go and the influences of this great Brotherhood 
are nation-wide, that you may look back to 
this hour spent by you in this capital of the 
state of Indiana when this great institution 
goes forth fully equipped for the great work 
which you have set out to establish. I thank 
you. 



VII 

THE GENESIS OF THE PKESBYTERIAN 
BROTHERHOOD 

BY THE REV. R. R. BIGGER, PH. D. 

Dr. Bigger prepared and introduced the Ma- 
honing Overture, also the Ohio Overture asking 
the General Assembly to take steps toward the 
organization of the Brotherhood. 

Mr. Chairman and Brothers: At a meet- 
ing of the Presbytery of Mahoning in the 
month of October, 1904, the question, How 
to interest and use the men of the Presbyte- 
rian Church in behalf of their fellow-men, and 
for the upbuilding of the kingdom, was under 
discussion. A general lamentation was going 
up on all sides from the pastors deploring the 
apathy of many of the men as to church at- 
tendance and Christian work, when your hum- 
ble servant arose and said, "I do not wonder 
that the men of the Presbyterian Church are 
not as active as they should be ; for, while the 
General Assembly has made ample provision 
for the organization, encouragement, and main- 
tenance of work for children, young people, and 
women, nothing in the way of a society or 

89 



90 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

Brotherhood distinctively Presbyterian has 
been provided for our men, so that with com- 
mon purpose in view our Presbyterian men in 
all our churches, cities, presbyteries, synods, 
and throughout the world could move forward 
in an organized effort. In view of this the 
wonder to me is that the men are as active as 
they are, and I believe that the time has come 
when an overture should be sent to the General 
Assembly asking it to take steps toward the 
formation of a men's society within our church, 
providing for presbyterial, synodical, and na- 
tional conventions." 

You should have seen the response to that 
sentiment, especially on the part of the laymen. 
Instantly one of them was on his feet and moved 
that the speaker be appointed to draft an 
overture to this effect to be sent from Mahon- 
ing Presbytery to the General Assembly. It 
was drafted and when presented to the presby- 
tery, it received a unanimous, affirmative vote. 
But knowing that 'Mahoning was not a large 
presbytery, we feared that the General Assem- 
bly might not seriously consider our overture, 
and as I was a delegate to the Synod of Ohio 
which met in Cincinnati, I determined to ask 
the synod to make this same overture its over- 
ture. The synod without one dissenting vote 
adopted it. When it came to the General As- 
sembly at Lake Winona in May, 1905, affirma- 
tive action on the overture was unanimous. In 
fact everything has been unanimous from start 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 91 

to finish,- — a good omen for this convention. 
The Assembly's committee which has done such 
grand work was appointed, and the response 
from the questionaire which they sent out to 
prominent ministers and laymen all over the 
country showed that the time for the Brother- 
hood had come. The church was ripe for it. 

We have had a multitude of men's societies, 
clubs, guilds, leagues, and organized Bible 
classes scattered throughout the church, scarce- 
ly any two of them alike, with no common organ- 
ization binding them together. The Brother- 
hood movement is an attempt to put into prac- 
tice the self-evident truth that "in union there 
is strength," and, "without counsel purposes 
are disappointed : but in the multitude of coun- 
sellors they are established." (Prov. 15:22.) 

The most pleasing and most hopeful aspect of 
this movement is that the laymen from the be- 
ginning have been anxious for the Brotherhood. 
Everywhere they declare that they feel the need 
of a general organization which will bring the 
laymen of our cities and the nation together for 
conference and fellowship. 

Pastors were also pleased with the idea, for, 
desiring to organize their men, they are bewil- 
dered as to what is the best kind of a society to 
organize. We trust the Brotherhood movement 
will bring to pastors and churches the wisdom 
they seek. My heart is in this movement, and 
my fondest desire is: "Long live the Brother- 
hood." 



vni 

GREETINGS FROM FRATERNAL ORGAN- 
IZATIONS 

JOHN CLARK HILL, D.D., PRESIDING 

Dr. Hill. — I have been frequently asked if 
this Presbyterian Brotherhood that we are talk- 
ing about, is going to supplant the Brotherhood 
of Andrew and Philip. No, not at all. We 
want these organizations in our churches and 
we do not care what kind of an organization it 
is so long as we get the men together to do 
things. That is what the chapters of the 
Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip are doing 
with such great success, in a large number of 
our churches, and we will now hear from the 
Rev. Wm, H. Pheley, the secretary. 

Dr. Pheley. — I am very happy to look into 
your faces. It thrills my heart, as it would the 
heart of any man who loves the Lord Jesus 
Christ, to see such a splendid body of Christian 
men and know the purpose that brings them to- 
gether. 

I am very happy indeed to have the privilege 
of bringing you the fraternal greetings of the 

92 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 93 

largest men's organization in the world, work- 
ing within the church, that is strictly denomina- 
tional in relation to the church of which it is a 
part and interdenominational through feder- 
ated relations with chapters in other denomina- 
tions, — the Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip, 
the Federal Council of which I have the pleasure 
to represent. 

For fifteen years this Brotherhood has stood 
for denominational loyalty and for interdenom- 
inational fellowship and federation, which is the 
spirit of the church of Jesus Christ to-day. 
Our organization was originally started to do 
the things in and through the church which it is 
expected this convention will foster in the local 
Presbyterian churches. Our purpose and aim 
is the same as yours. We are therefore deeply 
interested in this movement of the Presbyterian 
Church to bind its men together in a mighty 
union for the extension of the kingdom of Jesus 
Christ. If there were representatives here 
from the twenty-four different denominations 
in which the Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip 
is at work they would be of one mind and of 
one heart in giving you Godspeed, and in pray- 
ing for glorious results to come from this con- 
vention. "We sincerely hope that there will go 
out from this convention a power that will be 
instrumental in planting a men's organization 
in every church of the denomination. The 
Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip, with its 
years of experience, has proved a few things in 



94 



THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 



reference to men's work in the churches, which 
I wish that I had time to bring to your atten- 
tion, but I am told that I must compress my 
remarks into five minutes, and my compressor 
seems adequate for the occasion. 

The Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip was 
organized about eighteen years ago by the Rev. 
Rufus W. Miller, D.D., who had three ideas for 
his foundation stones: First, that young men 
needed something definite to do; second, that 
responsibility develops ability; and third, that 
men are the best persons to win men. The 
Brotherhood has never lost sight of these funda- 
mentals. It has stood for simplicity of or- 
ganization and shown itself flexible enough 
to meet varied conditions and requirements 
of the local church. Scarcely two of our 
organizations or chapters are identical in 
work and method. There is a greater or 
less variety of work according to the needs 
of the various churches. Two things, however, 
stand out clear in all of our Brotherhoods, 
namely, the rule of prayer, and the rule of serv- 
ice, and these are essential to any successful 
men's organization in the church, as the history 
of men's organizations throughout the churches 
has proved. If there is any secret to our Broth- 
erhood's success, this is the secret. If vou have 
service you must have back of it prayer. 

My greetings to-day come from forty thou- 
sand Brotherhood men and more than fourteen 
thousand of them are members of the Presby- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 95 

terian Church. I believe this movement will 
help men's work in all of the churches in our 
land. Some one said to me, "Do you expect to 
organize chapters of the Brotherhood of An- 
drew and Philip in the Presbyterian churches 
after this movement?" Certainly. It is in ac- 
cord with the General Assembly's plan that we 
should do so. It is the strongest men's work 
in the Presbyterian Church to-day and is in per- 
fect harmony with the purpose and hope of this 
convention. There comes before me a vision 
which the immortal Bunyan pictured, and which 
I hope this convention will help to actualize in 
the lives of thousands of men. Christian saw 
the picture, you will remember, in the house of 
the Interpreter and this was the fashion of it: 
"He had his eyes looking up to heaven, the best 
of books was in his hands, the law of truth was 
written upon his lips, the world was behind his 
back — he stood as if he pleaded with men and 
a crown of glory did hang over his head." 

The Chairman then introduced Mr. John 
Henry Smale, representing the Brotherhood of 
St. Andrew, of the P. E. Church. 

Mr. Chairman and Fellow-soldiers in the army 
of Jesus Christ : It gives me great pleasure to 
come here in behalf of the president and officers 
and members of this organization to extend to 
you their earnest congratulations and their 
most cordial greetings in this great undertak- 
ing which you are about to inaugurate. I take 



96 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

it, gentlemen, that you are doing just what we 
did twenty-three years ago. You are not in- 
troducing anything new into the Presbyterian 
Church, but you are commencing upon some- 
thing in a new way. 

The Brotherhood of St. Andrew realized that 
the two basic principles of their organization 
must be service and prayer, and so they adopted 
two rules, the rules of service and prayer, and 
made as its sole object the extension of Christ's 
kingdom among men, and especially young men. 
The organization originated twenty-three years 
ago with twelve men in St. James, Chicago, and 
it now extends all over the world where the Eng- 
lish language is spoken. In America alone it 
numbers some twelve thousand active Brother- 
hood men. The Brotherhood of St. Andrew 
was not organized very long before it realized 
it had an opportunity to do a great work. Even 
the boy problem is not peculiar to the Presby- 
terian Church. I understand, however, from 
this conference, that you know a great deal 
about the boy, but we know very little about the 
boy or how to handle him. The senior organi- 
zation was formed for ten years before we 
undertook the boy problem, and then we formed 
among the boys the very same kind of an or- 
ganization, and they have the same rules, the 
rules of prayer and service. They try to spread 
Christ's kingdom among the boys, and they 
make an earnest effort each week to bring one 
person nearer to Christ through the church. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 97 

I do not see why we should have so much 
trouble in getting the boy into the church. 
There is everything in the life of Jesus that 
would appeal to a boy if he likes a hero. If he 
wants a hero, he was a hero; if he wants a 
dreamer, Jesus Christ was a dreamer, but he 
dreamed the dreams of God, and they always 
came true. And I tell you, gentlemen, if you 
will present the boy Jesus Christ to the boy, 
he will be absolutely irresistible to the boy, and 
you will not have to come to the convention for 
ideas. Go to the Brotherhood of St Andrew. 
I was sixteen years of age myself when I sur- 
rendered to Jesus Christ, and boys usually do 
between twelve and eighteen. Now, it can be 
done with other boys if it was done with m v e, 
and I would recommend to this Brotherhood 
here that they adopt some such a plan as was 
adopted by the Brotherhood of Andrew as soon 
as possible. 

Now gentlemen, the reason I say that the 
character of Jesus will appeal to the boy is this : 
I myself am the director of the boys ' chapter of 
the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. "When I tell 
these boys that we have come together for the 
purpose of following a Man who went into the 
world and told men that they were liars, and 
that they were thieves, and went into their 
churches and turned over their money tables 
and called them canting hypocrites and whit- 
ened sepulchers, and that he made enemies 
of them, and they began to make plans to trap 
7 



98 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

him and they did, and took him before the 
magistrate and convicted him, and they spat on 
him and nailed him to the cross, and then sang, 
1 ' Hail, King of the Jews, ' ' and in his agony he 
said, * l Father, forgive them ; for they know not 
what they do ' ' — why that is magnificent to hand 
to the boy! They cannot resist that appeal of 
Jesus Christ from the Cross. 

Now I want to agree with one of your most 
wonderful speakers ; he has brought a message 
to this conference, — Mr. McDonald. He made 
a statement that in our politics in this country 
we had graft and corruption, and he said that 
in business men were not true. I just wonder 
what he thinks of some of the people that we 
have in the church. I agree with him, and I 
believe I represent the sentiment of the Ameri- 
cans here,- — I am going to do this on my own 
responsibility — there are not only grafters in 
the United States Legislature, but a strong band 
of men who are fighting this and extending 
the honor to their countrymen. You will find 
in the business world that men are being inter- 
ested ; and so I liked this message from this gen- 
tleman. The realization of the ideals of this 
country are not coming through the Republican, 
the Democratic or the Socialistic, or any other 
party; but they are coming through the per- 
sonal fidelity and allegiance of every American 
citizen to our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. 

Now gentlemen, when you go away and get 
into the struggle, sometimes you will get the 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 99 

worst of it, and sometimes the best; but it is a 
good thing to feel that we are in the hands of 
God working out his purpose. When I came 
here, I came to congratulate you, but that does 
not express it. I want to extend to you my per- 
sonal love and the love of the Brotherhood of 
St. Andrew. You are going into this work of 
saving men and we hope you will have success. 
Now I hope that you will try to show to the 
boys of your territory the side of Jesus which 
is altogether lovely, and I hope we will be able 
in whatever way we can to cooperate with you 
in bringing men and boys to him who is called 
the "Wonderful, Counsellor, The almighty 
God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of 
Peace. f ' 

I thank you for the privilege of addressing 
you here this afternoon. 

Dr. Hill. — La§t February in Pittsburg there 
was a most notable convention of men, laymen 
of the United Presbyterian Church, who were 
called together not through their General As- 
sembly but through their laymen. They met 
and organized and then went to their Assembly 
for recognition. We began the other way. 
They have got the start of us, and they have a 
most magnificent start. The men of the United 
Presbyterian Church have set the pace, and you 
might say that we could at least make a good 
second. So we will hear this afternoon from 

LOFC. 



100 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

Judge Mackenzie Cleland, of Chicago, on The 
United Presbyterian Men's League. 

Judge Mackenzie Cleland. — Gentlemen, 
when I am obliged to tell you all I have to say 
in five minutes I can readily sympathize with 
the college professor who was able to speak in 
ten different languages and married a woman 
who would not let him speak in any. However, 
I am very glad to be able to represent for five 
minutes the men's movement in our church. I 
wish to take this opportunity to congratulate 
you on the somewhat unusual but nevertheless 
reasonable wisdom in getting the idea from the 
United Presbyterian Church, and I wish to re- 
mind you lest you forget it, we have some other 
good things which we want you to feel at per- 
fect liberty to adopt. 

In the city of Chicago seven per cent of the 
men are members of church. I heard of a col- 
lege man in a church — and I have heard it re- 
marked that that was about the last place on 
earth to look for a college man— but I am afraid 
if things keep on as they are the churches will 
be the last place to look for any kind of a man 
in our large cities. In the churches only twen- 
ty-three per cent of the men maintain any offi- 
cial position or connection with the work of 
the congregation, and seventy-seven per cent do 
absolutely nothing toward promoting the de- 
velopment of the church; and it is because of 
that fact that the men's movement in the United 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 101 

Presbyterian Church was organized, when as it 
has been stated, in the city of Pittsburgh three 
per cent of all of our men met together last Feb- 
ruary and promoted this organization. I am 
also not ashamed to confess it was because of 
the magnificent work of our women that we did 
this. I think it was George Eliot that was 
responsible for the allegation that if women are 
foolish it is because they were made to match 
the men. But in religious matters the women 
are more than a match for the men. A boy once 
stated that after God made man he took out his 
brains and made woman. 

Those people who ride in automobiles have 
divided the human race into two classes, the 
quick and the dead. And I sometimes think 
that this classification may be applied to our 
churches. If this little song, " Shall I be car- 
ried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, while 
others strive to win the prize and sail through 
bloody seas," should be sung to some of the 
men, some of them would say, "It looks good to 
me." 

The organization which we founded in Pitts- 
burgh has met our expectations; we had how- 
ever, a view of the future which influenced us 
very much. In our organization there is a re- 
markable interest in these days in the study of 
God's word by men and women. We have in 
the city of Chicago fourteen hundred adult 
Bible classes in our Sabbath schools that report 
forty thousand members, and it is a serious 



102 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

question as to whether or not these Bible classes 
should not be made to unite to our organization. 
The Bible is the only thing which will set Israel 
free, and it is the only thing which will set 
America free. We must go to battle, but we 
must be careful of one thing, and that is not to 
fire at one another, but to aim at one common 
enemy. 

It has been said that the difference between 
Columbus and Field was that Columbus said, 
"Here is one world, let's make two," and Field 
said, "Here are two worlds, let's make one." 
And as the theologians have said, "Here is one 
church, let 's make a hundred. ' ' But it has been 
said later, "Here are one hundred churches, 
let's make one," — and that one — a United Pres- 
byterian ! 

William Jennings Bryan. — I do not want to 
carry my double standard idea to the extent 
that I make two speeches when I am to make 
but one. I think you ought to be satisfied if I 
get far enough away to make a speech on reli- 
gion in a day, and give me the most desired, 
but not often enjoyed, privilege of hearing 
someone else speak. For the past few years I 
have had to speak so often and travel so fast 
that I have not had a chance to hear a great 
many speak, and I have enjoyed very much lis- 
tening to those who have spoken, and I am not 
going to take any more of your time. I want 
to hear all I can hear, and I am only sorry I 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 103 

am not going to be permitted to hear more 
speeches than it will be possible for me to hear. 
I will speak to-night. 



IX 

THE CONFERENCE ON PRACTICAL 
WORK 

PRESIDENT C. W. DABNEY, LL.D., UNIVERSITY OF 
CINCINNATI, PRESIDING 

President Dabney. — It has been decided that 
we shall devote this hour to the subject of the 
great fundamental questions of the work of 
Men's Brotherhoods, and I will call on several 
gentlemen to talk to us on this subject. I am 
giving them brief notice, but that is as much 
notice as was given to me. We will hear from 
Brothers Vose, Sutherland, Hall, Dowling, and 
Chambers. The leader will have five minutes, 
and the other gentlemen three minutes each, 
then we will hear from any one. The subject 
is the work of the men's Bible classes, their or- 
ganization, their methods of work, their method 
of getting new members, and of keeping them 
after getting them, and the method of getting 
them into the church. All matters pertaining 
to the Bible class are proper for discussion at 
this time. I shall call on Mr. Vose first. 

Mr. Vose.— I come from the Second Presby- 
terian Church of Evanston, a suburb of Chicago, 

104 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 105 

a dormitory for Chicago business men. We are 
not asleep there. We are under the leadership 
of the moderator of the Presbytery of Chicago. 
He has inspired every one of us with this 
thought of individual work for individuals, and 
under his leadership in the spring, a year ago, 
we took in forty-four young people. I do not 
know whether what I am to say is worth hear- 
ing or not. We have three leagues, first the 
men's league, from eighty to one hundred. This 
stands for some things that make for the edu- 
cation of manhood. The men's league includes 
the ushers of the church, and they collar every 
one who happens to step into the church. Sec- 
ond, we accomplish work through a Bible class 
which I have had the privilege of teaching. For 
the last ten years this has been composed of 
young men, their ages running from twenty to 
thirty-five. Last spring we consolidated this 
with the men's class that before that had been 
under the direction of our pastor, and now the 
ages run from twenty-five to eighty-three. 

Third, we are bringing to the league young 
men of the church aged fifteen to twenty-five. 
We have first, a look-out committee, that looks 
out and looks in ; then, second, a committee that 
looks after fhe spiritual work of the class; 
third, a special committee; and fourth, an ath- 
letic committee. Under this head we play base- 
ball and football, in fact almost anything or 
everything. 

In the city of Evanston we do not have the 



106 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

floating population which you have in larger cit- 
ies; they are permanent residents, but under 
our formation of the classes we are successful 
in doing this, putting men to work who have 
never worked before for Christ, and under the 
present leadership they are doing the most that 
it is possible for anyone to do. I think that if 
this is possible in our church it is possible any 
place. 

Mr. Allan Sutherland. — In our Brother- 
hood of Andrew and Philip in Philadelphia we 
emphasize the fact that every man who is 
brought into the Brotherhood will be put to 
work, and the strong point we make is that 
every man, young or old, is given an opportu- 
nity to go into the Bible classes ; and we encour- 
age our men to take an interest in the general 
work of the Sunday school. This is the great 
secret of successful men's work: giving men 
something to do as soon as they get into the 
church. I have had the opportunity of teaching 
a Bible class for the past fourteen years, and 
it has been one of my chief delights. There is 
no honor the church could confer upon me that 
I would count greater. In this work we come 
in contact with the men, especially the young 
men of the church, who have not given them- 
selves to Christ. We have them at an age when 
they are ready to decide for or against; and 
we can exert our influence and bring these 
young men to Christ. What a privilege ! The 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 107 

class has also had a great influence on me; for 
I will say to you that it has held me in the 
church. When I have had severe temptations 
the knowledge that these men were looking to 
me for guidance, and that I was in a large sense 
their example, has held me steady when the al- 
lurements of the world were strong upon me. 
No matter what I have done for the young men 
of my class, they have done more for me. At 
one time, when we had a membership of fifty or 
sixty, it was reported that not three squares 
from our church there was a speak-easy where 
a large number of young men spent their Sun- 
day afternoons. Our class decided to do some- 
thing to change that condition. We made it a 
matter of prayer, and asked God to guide us in 
an effort to break up this speak-easy. Two 
weeks from that time we had almost every one 
of those young men in our class. To my own 
knowledge seventeen young men out of that 
speak-easy have t lfessed Jesus Christ. 

It is good to take a class of boys and grow up 
with them. While the responsibility is great, 
the joy and privilege is greater. The blessing 
to one's life is inestimable. I still have my 
class, and I pray the Lord that he will let me 
be the teacher of it for many years to come. 

Mr. Hall. — In our work in the Bible class 
part of our work in the church in Chicago we 
are more impressed with the difficulty of ac- 



108 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

complishing what we would like to accomplish 
than we are with our success in solving the dif- 
ficulties. My own work has been with young 
men, ranging in attendance from thirty to 
eighty per Sunday. A portion of them I have 
almost grown up with, and when I have thought 
of leaving that part of the city these young men 
have held me where I have been living. We 
have an organization and we find that we do 
not need to watch them very much. At first I 
was very anxious lest we would run away with 
ourselves with entertainments, but we found 
that when we had our Bible class every Sunday 
we could let them go free, for their plans were 
actuated by a Christian principle and they did 
not need to be checked and corrected very much. 
In this organization the work is thrown upon 
the young men as much as possible. The look- 
out committee looks for members ; the entertain- 
ment committee entertains them when they get 
them. 

We have a prayer meeting at our house 
every Saturday night a certain portion of every 
year, and in order that we may keep the at- 
tendance it meets at 7 :15 and stops at 8 :00, so 
that the young people have the evening before 
them. It has been a great source of delight to 
me to see the influence of this on the young 
people. They have set out to see what members 
of the class were not members of any other 
church, and they have done a great work for 
the Lord Jesus Christ. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 109 

Mr. Dowling. — The first thing we consider is 
how to get men into the church, and the second 
thing is to keep them after we have them in. 
One way is to supply them with printed litera- 
ture, to distribute it broadcast ; also send it out 
to individual men who are not connected with 
the class, and send out postal cards in some at- 
tractive form determined upon by some man of 
ability in writing advertisements. Find some 
man in the class to write the postal cards. Then 
also give some system of Sunday evening en- 
tertainments, an address by some prominent 
man from a distance. Have a large number of 
the men of your class on the entertainment com- 
mittee. They will invite their friends. Have 
the addresses made especially with reference to 
men and men's needs. Aside from this, per- 
sonal invitations will bring a large number of 
men. Send the invitations to their business 
houses and invite them to come to the class. Do 
not stop with one, or two, or three invitations, 
but keep on inviting them until they come. 
When I get them there I believe in the lecture 
method. I do not believe that as a rule men 
care for the catechism form of Bible instruc- 
tion. 

For in this way you get some one with a half- 
baked idea, and I believe the safer plan for them 
is to get some one who will take the pains to 
present the lesson. Any man who will come 
to such a class will be interested by the pure 
gospel of Jesus Christ, and the more you tell 



110 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

him of his need of Jesus, the more you will in- 
terest him. You cannot please a business man 
better than to hit him between the eyes on the 
subject of religion. 

Mr. Chambers. — I represent a class of men 
with an enrollment of three hundred and twen- 
ty-five. This class is fifty years old. It was 
founded fifty years since by a gentleman who 
until six years ago was its only teacher. Its 
curriculum is very small. "We study the Bible 
and nothing else until we take up the lesson for 
the week. We have a church membership from 
that class, now in the church, of one hundred 
and thirty men. Its growth is dependent on 
the personal efforts of the men themselves, fol- 
lowed by methods similar to those just spoken 
of, — making use of the post office. The attend- 
ance of this class on the part of the men is phe- 
nomenal. We have men in that class who have 
not missed a Sunday for ten years ; some have 
not missed a Sunday for fifteen years ; one who 
has not missed a Sunday for twenty years ; and 
another who takes special pride in the fact that 
he has missed only three Sundays out of thirty- 
three years. I ask you, Can you match that 
anywhere else? We have fathers, grandfath- 
ers, and great-grandfathers, men who came in 
when they were boys, and now they have 
children in other classes of the school and 
sometimes grandchildren. The other day we 
started in to see how many grandfathers there 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION HI 

were in our school, and we counted a dozen, and 
then stopped. 

One brother said that he has got more out of 
teaching a class than he gave to it. That has 
been my experience exactly. I have had more 
practical lessons than I have got out of all of 
the course of sermons I ever attended. When 
I studied for the ministry I was taught that a 
sermon must consist of an exordium, an argu- 
ment, and a peroration. I have learned some- 
thing better. I have a new rule in my teaching. 
Abridge your exordium, have more argument, 
and leave out the peroration. I have found that 
the stronger truth you give a man the better he 
likes it. I thank God that he has given me the 
privilege of coming in contact with a class like 
that, and that I have been honored with a re- 
quest to be a representative at this convention. 

President Dabney. — Is it not true that noth- 
ing except the word of God as given by the 
Spirit of God will produce such results? I 
happen to know Dr. Phillips who has spoken 
to us this afternoon. He is the superintendent 
of the Sunday School Bible Class Department. 
We want three minutes from him. 

Dr. Phillips. — I knew a negro minister down 
South who said that he first presented his text, 
then gave his arguments, and then put on the 
rousements. My experience with men has been 
this, that your explanation of the text may be 



112 THE PRESBYTERIAK BROTHERHOOD 

very simple, and you may put on the arguments 
very quickly, but if yQu will spend more of your 
time in putting on the rousements you will get 
something done. Mr. Spurgeon said that his 
sermons went along quietly and he saved him- 
self until the last, and I think any one could be 
profited by taking one of his sermons and study- 
ing his method. But brethren, if you want to 
know how to teach a Bible class, the best thing 
is to get the class in touch with the Lord Jesus 
Christ himself. If you will take the parable of 
the Good Samaritan and not study it for what it 
means, simply, but especially for the method in 
which Jesus taught his lesson you will find out 
how to solve your problem. There is no doubt 
in my mind about these things. 

The other day I was in Eochester at a Bible 
class in a Baptist Church, and they elected me 
assistant. I was surprised to find that class 
numbered two hundred and ninety-eight men. I 
wanted to find out the reason for this large num- 
ber, and so I said to one of the men in the class 
who happened to be a street car conductor, 
"How came you to be in this class ?" He re- 
plied, "I couldn't keep out of it." "Why," 
said I, "what do you mean?" He replied, "I 
had forty-two personal invitations and I had to 
come or die." 

The Rev. Dr. H. H. Gregg. — There is nothing 
that will interest men like the great word of 
God. It has been my privilege to speak to col- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 113 

lege men and I find that we can study more 
from history when we learn the great plans of 
God as outlined in his words of prophecy; that 
we can understand more of nature when we find 
that Christ is the Teacher. He is the only key 
to the great book of heaven on earth. He is the 
only key to human history. There is no key like 
the word of God that will interest the young 
man. It has been my privilege to speak to a 
large number of young men from all over the 
country. I open the Book of God and find the 
prayer of the Spirit of God working in their 
hearts to give them a new vision of God's Son. 

Rev. Geoege Dugan. — What I have to say I 
will say as briefly as possible. I have a Sunday 
school in my church and in less than twelve 
months it has doubled. It may be of interest to 
you to know how this came about. It was due, 
I think, mainly to two things, first, to the organi- 
zation of the adult men's Bible class; and sec- 
ond, to the organization of a Bible class for 
young men. These two classes set the pace for 
the other classes of the school. They caused a 
tremendous activity throughout the whole 
school. There were several interesting effects 
that appeared soon. The Bible class proved a 
most effective instrument in reorganizing our 
teaching course. I remember a revival service 
that was conducted not very long ago, and one 
of the ministers was asked if there was much 
success. "Yes," he replied, "tremendous suc- 

8 



114 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

cess." He was then asked how many were 
added to the church, and he replied that he did 
not add any. "How do you mean that the 
revival was a success, when none were added to 
the church?" He replied, "We got rid of 
fifteen brethren. ' ' When you begin to organize 
your classes for business the kind of teachers 
that you do not want have a very polite way of 
asking to be excused. You have left those who 
have heretofore been left from the work and are 
willing to take hold of things. That means 
something. Now this is the way we doubled our 
attendance in less than a year. I am free to say 
that the greatest blessing that I am finding in 
the work in the city of Chicago is coming to me 
through that work. I have the special delight 
of being the leader of the men's Bible class, and 
it is a joy, I assure you. 



ADDRESS OF THE HON. WILLIAM JEN- 
NINGS BRYAN 

Brethren. — I am glad to be a delegate here, 
and I am glad there are no contesting delega- 
tions. I have not always been so fortunate in 
attending national societies. I am glad to be a 
delegate at this first convention of the Presby- 
terian Brotherhood, and I think that I can re- 
joice as much on account of the union of the 
two branches of the Presbyterian Church as any 
other person here, and possibly few of you oc- 
cupy quite the position that I do. I had the 
pleasure just a little while ago of eating dinner 
with the Cumberland Presbyterians over at the 
hotel, and I reminded them that I began my life 
as a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian 
Church. I became a member of that church 
when I was fourteen years of age, and I have 
since had much reason to rejoice that I began 
as early as I did. When I left home for col- 
lege, the city to which I went had no Cumberland 
Presbyterian Church and I took my letter to the 
regular Presbyterian Church — I do not know 
that I ought to put in the word ' ' regular, ' ' but 
should simply use the word church. I have 

115 



116 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

been looking back and making some calculations 
and I think that this union of the two churches, 
this membership of the two bodies, justifies me 
in saying that my Presbyterianism is like the 
unit in the establishment of our monetary sys- 
tem, when both Jefferson and Hamilton agreed 
that the unit should rest upon two metals, and 
I have figured that taking the time I was in the 
Cumberland Church and comparing it with the 
time I have been in the Presbyterian Church, 
the ratio is all right. Now, who will doubt that 
I have a right to be here? 

I am glad to attend a Brotherhood conven- 
tion for, if I mistake not the signs of the times, 
there is an awakening, world-wide in its extent, 
and it has for its object the teaching of the 
religion of Brotherhood, and we could not have 
selected any better word than that to describe 
this association that is to be formed in our 
church. I am pleased that the men of the 
church have commenced to form associations. 

Over in the Orient I attended some of the 
mosques, and I found that there only the men 
attend the church. The men assembled and 
prayed, and they have a screen behind which the 
women sometimes stand. Now in our church 
we have this almost reversed, for we have been 
letting the women attend and the men do not 
even come as near as the screen. I believe it is 
a healthy sign that these organizations are 
springing up whereby the men are being 
brought into active Christian work. The first 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 117 

thing to be done in this direction is the estab- 
lishment or the arousing of an interest among 
the men already in the church. I have noticed 
within the last few years, as I have gone from 
place to place, that these men's societies are 
constantly growing in number and in size. I 
have attended them in the Baptist Church, in 
the Congregational Church, in the Methodist 
Church, and in the Presbyterian Chuch. There 
are organizations also in other branches of the 
Christian Church, but I mention these which 
within the past two or three years it has been 
my privilege to attend. 

I say it is a good sign. I believe that it is a 
part of a world-wide movement that means a 
full awakening among the people. I have 
thought that possibly my increasing interest in 
ethical questions was due to my increasing age, 
for I think it is true that as we grow older, we 
begin to look at questions more from a moral 
standpoint. When we are young physical 
pleasures and delights occupy our thoughts ; as 
we grow a little older, intellectual pleasures and 
delights occupy us, and as we grow still older, 
the moral phases of life impress us more. Not 
long ago an eminent physician dared to suggest 
that men pass their age of usefulness after 
they cease to grow, and that after that, at about 
sixty, they are useless, and even suggested that 
it would be well for the world if they could be 
snuffed out. It made me indignant, be- 
cause a man that overlooks the fact that 



118 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

while man's physical strength reaches its 
maximum before sixty, and his intellectual 
strength reaches its maximum before he is 
sixty, man's spiritual strength ought to 
grow to the very verge of the grave, and he 
takes a very incomplete view of life who reckons 
man's strength only as it is manifest in muscle 
and brain. He who overlooks man's moral 
growth and spiritual development, has but 
slight knowledge of the man ; and he who would 
remove from the world the benediction of the 
man with whitened locks, has not stopped to 
calculate the loss. 

I want to speak to you further to-night on the 
subject of religion, and I hope that you will not 
view me with the critic 's eyes as I speak. This 
is not a theme on which I have spoken as often 
as I have on some others, but it is a theme upon 
which I feel much more deeply than upon any 
other subject. When I speak of government, 
that important science, that art, I am speaking 
of a subject which interests not all the people, 
but only a part. I only wish that the subject of 
government interested all, for it seems to me in 
a country like this where every citizen is a 
sovereign, the subject of government ought to be 
of intense interest. But I recognize that it is 
not true, that not as many as should be are in- 
terested in the study of the science of govern- 
ment. Not only do I speak to but a part when 
I speak upon the subject of government, but I 
recognize that the people to whom I speak are 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 119 

divided upon this subject, and not all of those 
who are interested take the same view of politi- 
cal questions that I take. Therefore, the subject 
is not only limited in its interest, but it is a sub- 
ject that raises more or less opposition in the 
minds of those to whom I speak. There is a sub- 
ject greater than any other subject. The subject 
of government relates to but a part of our life ; 
religion relates to all of our life. Government 
relates to only that part of our life which we live 
here ; religion relates to all of our life ; not only 
the part we live here, but the part we shall live 
beyond the grave. There can be no other sub- 
ject which equals in importance the subject of 
religion. 

Morality is necessary to society. I was look- 
ing up the question of civilization, and I found 
that very few had spoken or written upon the 
subject, and I found it difficult to secure a defini- 
tion. If you have not tried, let me ask you to 
find if you can a definition of civilization. I 
found none that seems to me to satisfy the re- 
quirements of a definition. Buckle defines it as 
measured by the influence of human mind over 
the forces of nature, but he omits the moral ele- 
ment in civilization — not only omitted it but jus- 
tified the omission. The more I have studied it 
the more I have been satisfied that the moral 
element is the most important part of the defini- 
tion of civilization, and the best definition I have 
been able to prepare is this, that civilization is 
the harmonious development of the human race, 



120 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

physically, mentally, and morally, a perfect civi- 
lization being one in which every citizen is de- 
veloped to the uttermost in body, mind, and 
heart. Now, if morals are necessary to civiliza- 
tion, then religion is necessary to morals, for I 
can conceive of no morals that are not based 
upon religion. I know that in saying this I am 
stating a proposition inconsistent with the argu- 
ments of the philosophers, but I have tried a 
little at least, to find the reasons the philoso- 
phers give for their position, and I am not 
satisfied with them. All I have been able to 
find in this philosophy in regard to morality is 
that they calculate the benefits to come from 
being moral and my conclusion is that a man, 
who is not moral except when he can calculate 
a benefit to himself because of his morality, is 
not likely to be very moral, and more than that, 
he spends time in calculating which he ought 
to spend in acting. The man who attempts to 
keep books on himself and to do enough good 
to justify public opinion does not do enough 
good to justify the bookkeeping. I am con- 
vinced that there can be no real morality with- 
out religion as the foundation of the morality. 
There is a gulf of immeasurable width between 
the man who does right because he thinks the 
people will see him if he does wrong, and the 
man who does right because he believes God 
will see him if he does wrong. Morality is the 
foundation of the greatest things in the nation. 
It is the element that gives the power of en- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 121 

durance in man. A man who is born without 
a moral foundation will sooner or later fall. 
A man requires religion in order to be strong. 
He may have been brought up under Christian 
environments and Christian influences and re- 
ceive such a momentum that he may go along 
in a moral course even though he denies the 
origin of his morality, but there is nothing to 
give momentum after you take away religion, 
and it is not fair to judge a man who is a .skep- 
tic, an atheist, or an infidel, but whose Christian 
environment has impressed him with moral ten- 
dencies — it is not fair to judge his attitude by 
his life, for his life is the result of Christian 
surroundings, while his voice denies the source 
from which his strength comes. 

Man is a religious being, and we find that in 
our country he was bowing before some God 
even before the white man's foot pressed the 
soil of America. The Indian was doing homage 
to the great spirit and speculating upon the 
happy hunting ground that awaited him. Go 
into any land under the sun and you will find 
that it has a religion. Go into India and you 
will find that they bathe in the waters of the 
Ganges, and bow down to idols of wood and 
stone. You will find the Buddhist bowing be- 
fore the image of Buddha, the Mohammedans 
bowing with their faces toward Mecca, the 
Chinaman bowing down and taking the name of 
Confucius upon his lips. Wherever you find 
man, you will find a religious sentiment in him. 



122 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

Tolstoi has defined religion as the relation 
which man fixes between himself and his God, 
and I do not know of a better definition. 
Every man before he comes to the years of 
accountability has fixed that relation. He may 
tell you that he will put it off; that he will 
wait for a more convenient season, but he has 
already fixed some relation between himself and 
his God. Tolstoi says that morality is the out- 
ward manifestation of this inward relation, and 
this gives rise to what he calls the cultured code. 
He speaks of those who regard religion as if it 
were good for people who were ignorant, but 
away from which they can go when they have 
reached a certain period of intelligence. It is 
true that this religious sentiment does not rest 
on superstition. It rests upon the conscious- 
ness which a man finds within himself of the 
limitation of his own power when recognizing 
his weakness, he looks for one who is stronger ; 
and recognizing his sinfulness, he looks to one 
who is sinless. 

We all have our religion, and if it is not a 
correct religion it is a false one. We all fix 
some relation between ourselves and God ; if it 
is not a true religion, it is a false religion, and 
it is a revelation in a man's life when this rela- 
tion between himself and his God undergoes a 
change. 

I thought that I appreciated religion years 
ago, but I have never appreciated it as I have 
since I have had the opportunity to compare it 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 123 

with the religions of the Orient; and I have 
never felt before as much interest in our na- 
tional work as I have since I have had the 
chance to see what our missionaries are doing 
throughout the Orient. Take the Hindu. He 
believes in the transmigration of the soul; that 
there is an endless chain of the spirit in man, 
from man to man, from man to animal, and from 
animal back to man — an endless chain that goes 
on through infinite time. What must be the 
feeling of the Hindu who believes that he has 
lived through forms innumerable and must yet 
pass through forms innumerable? 

When I thought of these things, I better 
understood the religion of Buddha. He gave 
the promise of relief from this endless chain. 
The distinct feature of the teaching of Buddha 
was that one might after a while reach a place 
where consciousness shall be lost; where self, 
love of self, and love of life is so eliminated and 
so exterminated that he may be lost in the great 
spirit and forever afterwards be without per- 
sonal consciousness. These people regard life 
as a curse from which you must hope and pray 
for relief. What a difference between their 
conception of life and ours ! Think of the de- 
voutness of some of these people. Five times a 
day they kneel with their faces to the earth and 
their heads to the ground, and upon rising they 
look toward Mecca. Wonderful devotion — and 
yet their heaven is not like ours. 

Before I went to China I liked the teachings 



124 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

and philosophy of Confucius, but when I began 
to study Confucianism and to compare it with 
the philosophy of the Sermon on the Mount, 
when I compared it with the teachings of the 
Man of Galilee, I saw the difference as I had 
never seen it before. I had heard it said that 
Confucius gave what was in substance the 
Golden Rule in his teaching of "Do not unto 
others that which you would not have others do 
unto you. ' ' But I found that there is a world- 
wide difference between the negative teaching 
expounded by Confucius, and the positive help- 
fulness taught by Christ. It would be a cold 
world if we had nothing better in it than the 
Confucian form of the Golden Rule, for you 
could stand on the bank of a stream and see 
your brother drown and not be required to help 
him at all, for as you did not push him in you 
would not have to pull him out. But the doc- 
trine of Christ is not that. It is not a negative 
quantity, but a positive force in the world. 

Confucius was once asked if he could giye any 
word that would embrace the whole of life and 
its relations, and he asked, "Is not the word 
' reciprocal' such a word?" Then, if any one 
does a favor to you, you must do a favor to him 
and try to keep the balance even. This was the 
idea of the philosophy of Confucius. The idea 
of Christ was that life should be like the over- 
flowing spring that pours forth constantly, one 
that refreshes and invigorates, and asks noth- 
ing in return. What a difference in these two 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 125 

statements ! Yet there is a greater difference. 
Some one asked Confucius if he believed that 
one should return good for evil. He replied, 
1 ' If you would return or reward evil with good, 
with what then would you reward good? I 
would reward good with good, and evil with 
justice." What a difference there is between 
that and the teaching of Christ! He bids us 
love our enemy and do good to them who de- 
spitefully use us, and do evil unto us. Reward 
evil with justice? How can he know what jus- 
tice is, if there is revenge in his heart ? How can 
he say what is just, if he looks through a mist 
of resentment? Look at the great doctrine of 
forgiveness illustrated by Christ, when he said, 
"Father, forgive them; for they know not what 
theydo," and in the Lord's Prayer, when he 
commands us to pray, "Forgive us our debts, 
as we forgive our debtors." This doctrine of 
forgiveness separates the philosophy of Con- 
fucius from the philosophy of Christ. 

I repeat that I have come to appreciate our 
Christianity more since I have had the chance 
of comparing it with philosophies of religion 
with which it comes in conflict. I am here to- 
night not because I think that I can say anything 
that will give any information to this body of 
Christians, but because I want to testify by my 
presence not only to my faith in, but to my ap- 
preciation of, the work our religion is doing for 
this world. AVhy is it that we do not have our 
churches full of men ? TThy is it that so small 



126 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

a percentage of the men of this country are con- 
nected with any church? Some think that be- 
lief in any sort of Christian religion implies 
mental weakness. There are some who even 
boast that they are too intelligent to accept the 
Christian faith or to accept the creed of any 
chnrch. 

When I was in college I nsed to know a man, 
an excellent man, but a very dissipated man. 
I nsed to see him going home from his office 
drank, so drank he had to rely on the intelli- 
gence of his horse to get him home. After 
I had become qnite accustomed to seeing him, I 
ran across a book which contained a sketch of 
the lives of the good men of his state. I saw 
his name, and knowing him, of course was inter- 
ested in the sketch. There was one thing in the 
paragraph which impressed me very much. It 
stated that he was brought up in the Baptist 
Church, but that he got more liberal as he got 
older. I used to think of his liberality when I 
would see him going home drunk. I wish that 
I might stand before an audience of young men 
who sometimes flippantly speak of their liber- 
ality of view, their breadth of view, and who 
give this as their reason for not being members 
of the church. I would like to have such young 
men look into your faces and ask themselves 
whether in this audience they see any sign or 
evidence of lack of intelligence, lack of breadth 
of mind, lack of manhood and strength. No, 
it is not humiliating to admit that one believes 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 127 

in God. The ablest judge is not ashamed to 
quote almost with reverence the decisions of 
renowned judges of the past. No man in poli- 
tics is humiliated when he quotes from a good 
political leader. No man in business feels hu- 
miliated when he subscribes to a wise saying of 
some good business man. No scientist feels 
humiliated when he accepts or uses an idea that 
has been given to the world by a former scien- 
tist. Why then should I need be ashamed to 
admit belief in and reverence for the great All- 
powerful, All-wise, All-loving? Is a man less a 
man because he recognizes his own inferiority ? 
Is he not the greater because he is wise enough 
to see how small he is ? 

When I was in college I used to have some 
religious difficulty — I passed through a period 
of skepticism, — and it was then that I began to 
appreciate the influence upon me of my early 
church connections. I worried about the theory 
of creation, and at last I went back to the Book 
of Genesis and planted myself upon the state- 
ment that in the beginning God created the 
heavens and the earth. I have been standing 
there ever since, and I am willing to stand there 
until I find some theory of creation that goes 
back of the beginning. 

A man who believes in the nebular hypothesis 
takes for granted that there were matter and 
force, and out of these two things a world was 
constructed, but he believes that in the begin- 
ning there were matter and force. He assumes 



128 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

something to begin with, and I have as much 
right to assume as he has, and if he assumes 
matter and force to begin with, I prefer to as- 
sume intelligence back of matter and force. I 
prefer to assume a designer back of the design, 
for my mind is so constructed that I cannot 
conceive of a universe like this flung into the 
world by chance and guided by chance, and I 
must believe that back of this plan there was a 
mind that planned. 

I used to have some trouble with the miracles. 
Now I believe that when you have trouble with 
anything the best way to do is to examine it. If 
you have a horse that scares at something in 
the road, if you get out and lead him by it, he 
will scare the next time ; but if you will take him 
and lead him up to it and let him see what it is, 
he will not scare the next time. So when the 
miracles troubled me I began to investigate, and 
I found that there were just two questions in 
the miracles: Could God perform a miracle? 
And did he want to? The first question was 
easily answered. The God who could make a 
world could do anything with it he wanted to, 
and if we believe in a God all-powerful we must 
believe in a God who could perform a miracle if 
he wanted to. But the second question is the 
one that has given the most trouble. Would 
God want to perform a miracle? We have not 
had much trouble with men who would investi- 
gate, but we have had trouble with the man who 
thought he knew so much about God that he 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 129 

could tell what God would want to do under 
certain circumstances. The man who says that 
God would not want to perform a miracle, as- 
sumes a more intimate acquaintance with God 
and his plans and purposes than I dare assume. 
The older I grow the less willing I am to make 
this assumption. I find it so difficult to tell 
what God wants me to do to-day that I dare not 
look back thousands of years and declare in- 
fallibly what God might have wanted to do in 
those times past. 

We find about us things stranger than the 
things at which men stumble. We live in the 
midst of mystery. Shall we believe nothing that 
we cannot understand? Can you understand 
life? Do the records of history show anyone to- 
day who knows the secret of human life ? A few 
weeks ago I was traveling in North Carolina, 
and among those on the train was a man whom 
I had known for a number of years. We were 
chatting together, and in a little while some one 

came to me and said that Dr. Mc was dead. 

I went into the other car and there he was, dead. 
What was it that had departed? What is it 
that makes us to-day living, breathing human 
beings, with our plans, our hopes, our fears, and 
in a moment may convert every one of us into 
dead men? What is this thing that we call life? 
Yet, behold the civilization of the world that 
has been wrought by men and women, not one 
of whom knew the mystery of the life within 
them. If you tell me that mystery must keep 



130 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

us out of the church, then I say that we must 
learn the mystery of life. 

Last year as I was eating a piece of water- 
melon I was impressed with its beauty. I kept 
some of the seeds for planting, and I found that 
it took five thousand seeds to make a pound, 
and that very melon of which I was eating 
weighed forty pounds. I found that one little 
seed put into the ground under the influence of 
the warmth of the soil would gather from some- 
where two hundred thousand times its own 
weight, and form a watermelon the outside of 
which was green, with a lining of white, and a 
core of red, and all through the red seeds scat- 
tered every one of which was capable of doing 
the same thing over again. Where did it find 
its flavoring extract? Where did it gather its 
coloring matter? Will any scientist tell us? 
Unless a man understands how a little seed can 
build a watermelon he should not be too sure 
that he can place limitations upon the arm of the 
Almighty. 

Mystery! What if we should refuse to eat 
anything until we understood the mystery of 
its growth? We would die of starvation. But 
mystery does not bother us in the dining room, 
— it is only in the church. Does any one find 
difficulty in believing in the doctrine of conver- 
sion because it rests upon the doctrine of atone- 
ment? I have known people who have insisted 
that everyone should suffer for himself. Is this 
doctrine of one suffering for another so strange 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 131 

a doctrine as that? From the time we become 
conscious of anything until we die, we are con- 
stantly beholding the application of this doc- 
trine of others suffering for us. Take the 
mother. From the time her first child is born, 
for a quarter of a century it is scarcely out of 
her waking thoughts. She sacrifices for it, suf- 
fers for it, — why? Is it because she expects it 
to pay her back? No child ever paid a mother 
back; no child can pay a mother back. 
In the course of nature, what she has done 
is not paid back to her, but to the next gen- 
eration. Each generation suffers, sacrifices 
certain things for the generation that is to 
come. That is the law of nature and it is not 
confined to the home. No great step in human 
progress has ever been taken except by those 
who have sacrificed for others. Every great 
movement has back of it those who have given 
themselves for something greater than them- 
selves. So true is this that we do not regard 
a person as great until he has reached a point 
where he understands how small he is compared 
with the things for which he works and lives 
and even dies. 

There is a statement in the Bible that some 
have stumbled at, "He that saveth his life shall 
lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake 
shall save it." Is that strange? All history 
proves its truth. The man who lives only for 
himself lives a little life, but the man who gives 
himself to things larger and greater than him- 



132 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

self finds a larger life. Those who forget them- 
selves are the ones who achieve things, and 
those who are not willing to give time and life, 
and blood, if necessary, are counted small 
among their friends. 

Now this suffering of one for another lies 
back of all human progress. This illustrates 
Christ's knowledge of human life — the fact that 
he reached the heart of the world by dying for 
the world. The heart is touched by love, and 
what proves love? Not willingness to enjoy, 
but willingness to sacrifice; and when Christ 
was willing to die he gave the highest evidence 
he could give of his love. I have found them 
worshiping Christ in Japan, in China, and in 
India and Egypt, as well as in Europe, for 
wherever this story has been told it has touched 
the heart of the world. 

If I were going to prove the divinity of 
Christ, I would not start with his miracles, but 
I would start as Simpson started in that little 
book which to my mind is a wonderfully strong 
book, "The Fact of Christ. " He accepts it as 
a fact that Christ lived, and he says that when 
we come to contemplate the fact we realize 
somehow that there is something in that fact 
that relates to us. We can read that Cicero 
lived, that Napoleon lived, and not feel that our 
lives are connected with theirs, but when we 
read that Christ lived, and that he died, some- 
how we feel that his life was connected with our 
lives; and when we accept the character of 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 133 

Christ we find first a forgiving spirit and then a 
boundless love, and we are impressed with his 
life. We are impressed with the humiliation of 
his life, and still more with the wonderful spirit 
of forgiveness he taught. I believe that is the 
hardest Christian virtue we have to cultivate. 
It was once written on the monument of a great 
Eoman that he repaid both enemy and friend 
more than he received. That was not the spirit 
of Christ. Nothing could be done so bad but 
that he would forgive. "What a wonderful les- 
son in the spirit of forgiveness ! We have had 
the love of the parent for the child, and of the 
husband for the wife, but Christ loved even his 
enemies. If I were going to prove the divinity 
of Christ, I would take simply what we find told 
of him, and I would ask you to imagine any 
other theory consistent with the life, teachings, 
and death of Christ save that which accepts him 
as divine. Beared in the home of a carpenter, 
never having access to the wisdom of ancient 
times, never coming into contact with the wise 
men of his time, and yet when less than thirty- 
three years of age taught a code of morality the 
like of which the world has never seen. To my 
mind there is no other explanation than that he 
was divine. If divine, what humiliation can 
there be in our accepting him as a Saviour, as 
a Guide, and as an Example? 

I have never been so proud of my nation as 
I have been since I have had the opportunity to 
see what it is doing in a disinterested way for 



134 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

the rest of the world. If anyone asks me for an 
evidence of the divine origin of our religion I 
should say that by its fruits it should be known. 
This religion puts it in the hearts of men to go 
abroad and present this word of life, and this 
Christ to the people who know him not now, 
and who are bound to us by that tie only which 
binds every human being to every other human 
being. 

I was at a dinner in England. We were dis- 
cussing different nations and an Englishman 
asked me what I thought of the Englishman. 
I told him that he had made large contributions 
to the world's progress, and mentioned some of 
the things he had contributed. I then told him 
that I thought the worst objection to the Eng- 
lishman was his commercialism. One of the 
men at the table said that it was funny to hear 
an American find fault with an Englishman on 
account of his commercialism. "Why," he said, 
"we have always supposed that Americans 
were the worshippers of the almighty dollar 
above the people of any other country." I said 
it is true we have men in our country who wor- 
ship the almighty dollar, and it is also true 
that we have more altruism in the United States 
than in any other country in the world. They 
asked me for my evidence of this, and I men- 
tioned one evidence that I thought he would 
recognize, — that America, without drawing one 
dollar from India, sent almost as much money 
to India for Christianity and education as Eng- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 135 

land sent, although she was drawing a hundred 
million a year from India. They all admitted 
that this was good evidence. 

In visiting the Orient, I found evidence of 
America's unselfish interest in the welfare of 
the world. I found our missions scattered 
everywhere. One Sunday, when I spoke at 
Allahabad, at the Y. M. C. A., a man arose and 
said, "Mr. Bryan, do not measure the influence 
of Christianity upon our people by the number 
of church members, for the Christian ideal has 
made a far wider impression than the church 
membership would indicate. When you go back 
home, tell the people that we appreciate the mis- 
sionaries and the teachers they have sent to us, 
but tell them that they have sent too few com- 
pared with our needs. ' ' There I found teachers 
and preachers surrounded by heathenism. 
When I reached Bombay I found a school where 
the people were gathered together and taught 
to do things, and were thus fitted for better po- 
sitions. As I looked at these things, I thought 
that if we cannot boast that the sun never sets 
on our possessions, we can boast that the sun 
never sets on our American philanthropy. We 
have been talking of what the mind can do. We 
think it a wonderful thing that a person can 
stand by the side of a telegraph instrument and 
by means of an electric current speak to people 
thousands of miles away, an achievement of the 
head, and more wonderful still the heart that 
helps to do some great good puts into motion a 



136 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

word which will speak to the hearts that will 
beat ten thousand years after all of our hearts 
are still. 

Who can measure the influence of one 
preacher who has gone out of America to the 
Orient; who can measure the influence of a 
teacher who has left home and gone to carry a 
little of the higher civilization into India and 
China or Japan? 

I was reading not long ago the story of the 
revival in Wales, and it is said that it begun in 
a little country prayer meeting. In that prayer 
meeting there seems to have been some hesi- 
tancy about speaking, when a little girl arose 
and said in a childish voice, "If no one else 
wishes to speak, I must say that I love the Lord 
Jesus with all of my heart ; ' ' and it is said that 
this touched the hearts of those who were listen- 
ing and one after another they began to speak. 
From that little prayer meeting there went forth 
an influence that extended all over Wales, and 
meant the change of heart of tens of thousands. 
Who will measure the influence of that little 
girl upon the destiny of the human race ? 

I have a reason for believing in missionary 
work that I want to add to any reasons that you 
may have. I believe the Christian ideal is the 
best ideal of life the world has ever known. 
We must elevate the influence of that Christian 
ideal. Then what the world needs to do more 
than any other one thing is to use the Christian 
ideal as a standard. This gives me something 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 137 

to live for, and if this ideal is good enough for 
us, it is good enough for the people everywhere. 
That is reason enough why this ideal should be 
carried everywhere and placed in contrast with 
the lower ideals of the old world. This religion 
that we have is not a religion of weakness, but a 
religion of strength. If there is anything that 
can make one strong it is this religion that 
Christ has given unto us. Does it not give us 
the strength that comes from the sense of over- 
ruling care? Not only does the Bible assert 
that our lives are precious in the sight of God, 
but the poets have taken up the theme and 
woven it into immortal verse. Before I was 
able to understand the beauty of it my father 
used to have me read to him Bryant's poem, 
The Ode to the Water Fowl, and if you have not 
read it I would ask you to read it when you go 
home. The poet takes the course of the water 
fowl north and south to its home and follows 
it through all its wanderings, and in conclusion 
he says : 

He who from zone to zone 

Guides through the endless way thy certain 
flight. 
In the long way that I must tread alone, 

Will lead my steps aright. 

Christians, what is it worth to me to believe 
that? What is it worth to be able to stand on 
the promise of divine care? Who will measure 



138 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

the comfort that has been brought into the world 
by the belief in immortality? And it seems to 
me that the evidences of immortality are so 
strong that we should not need to have one rise 
from the dead to convince us that the grave is 
not the end. It seems that everything that has 
a voice tells us that there is life beyond. God 
gives us the sweet assurance of another spring- 
time. Will he neglect his word? Now I am as 
sure that man lives beyond the grave as I am 
that I am living to-day, but Christ has given us 
a new assurance of this. And what Christian 
would place a price upon the comfort that has 
been brought to his heart by this confident belief 
that in another world we shall meet those whom 
we have loved here ? Ah, what a strength that 
gives us ! If anyone ought to be strong in this 
world it is the Christian. If any one ought to 
work with courage it is the Christian, for he 
believes in God, he believes in the omnipotent 
Father, and no word spoken in behalf of truth 
is spoken without avail. 

An old colored man once described faith as 
having confidence that God would do what he 
promised. He said that if God told him to butt 
his head through a stone wall he would butt, for 
that was his part ; getting through the wall was 
the Lord's part. I have never heard a better 
illustration of faith in the better things of this 
world to be done by people who have faith 
enough to butt their heads against what seems 
a stone wall and trust God to open the way. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 139 

I visited Kome and walked round the walls of 
the colosseum and my mind ran back to that 
colosseum when the Christian martyrs were 
slain in the arena. They were taken there to 
make a spectacle for the people, but they raised 
their hands to heaven and prayed. It seemed 
as if this would do no good, and that their cause 
would be lost, but in a few decades their faith 
triumphed over all the world. I can imagine 
that at this time there were skeptics who said 
to these people, "Why die? Why not recant 
and live? Maybe after a while you can do 
something." But they did not fear to die, and 
by dying they accomplished more than they 
could have accomplished by their lives. It is 
said that those who went to scoff and laugh at 
these spectacles went away asking what it was 
that entered the hearts of these martyrs to 
make them die as they did. The testimony 
which they gave by the strength of their con- 
victions brought conviction to the hearts of 
those who had been unbelievers before. I have 
asked myself over and over again what would 
have been the fate of the Christian Church if 
the earlier Christians had had as little faith as 
some of our modern Christians seem to have. I 
have asked myself how long it would take to 
bring the time promised when every knee shall 
bow to Christ and every tongue confess him, if 
we the Christians of to-day had the faith and 
courage of the Christians of the earlier days. 
Our religion gives us strength, and in this 



140 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

strength we can go forth to fight. We can pre- 
sent this gospel, believing that it^is the gospel 
which appeals to the. minds and hearts of men. 
We can present this teaching that Christ 
gave, confident that no other philosophy com- 
pares with it. Other teachers have given to the 
disciples a more or less worthy method^ but ours 
gives us a heart of love that conquers every- 
thing. Our religion is built upon love, and love 
is the greatest force in the world. 

I heard a preacher in New York illustrate the 
difference between force and love. He repre- 
sented force by a hammer. He said that you 
could take a hammer and a piece of ice and 
break the ice into a thousand pieces, but yet 
every piece would still be ice. But a ray of 
sunshine quietly falling on the ice would melt 
it and there would be no ice. That ray of sun- 
shine illustrates the influence of love. Ours is a 
religion of love, and love is the basis of brother- 
hood, and brotherhood is the thing that binds 
us together. That this love which has taken 
thousands into foreign lands to give their lives 
for Christ ought to be sufficient for you and for 
me to lead to make us make whatever sacrifice 
duty calls for. There is this about a sacrifice, 
that whenever we look back over our lives we 
find that the brightest spots are not the days 
when people have done something for us, but 
the days that are hallowed by our contribution 
to the welfare of the world. God has so or- 
dained that by letting him live in our lives he 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 141 

not only allows us to realize the relief that we 
have in love, but to find the happiness that can- 
not be found in any other way. 

I ana glad that God did not make our happi- 
ness depend upon the possession of this world's 
goods, or on our position in society, or even on 
honor at the hands of the people, but that he 
gave us a recipe for happiness that puts it 
within the reach of every human being toward 
God and man. 



XI 

ADDRESSES AND CONFERENCE 

H. C. GARA, PRESIDING 

BROTHERHOOD: ITS NEED IN THE CHURCH 

BY PAUL C. MARTIN 

"But one more organization is needed in our 
country to-day," it has been cynically re- 
marked, "and that one, a society for the sup- 
pression of superfluous societies." The blessing 
pronounced on him who caused two blades of 
grass to flourish, where but one grew before, 
has not been extended to the one who multiplies 
organizations. 

We often become weary of the increase of 
organized effort, we chafe under the restraints 
of constitution and by-laws, and when a new 
propaganda is suggested, especially one de- 
signed to operate along lines of religious en- 
deavor, the cui bono question is immediately 
asked, and he who would stand as the advocate 
of a new society must be able to demonstrate, 
first, that a need exists, and second, that the 
proposed organization will best supply that 

142 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 143 

need. Our active business man of to-day, al- 
though immersed in organized effort, after in- 
stalling a new sales organization or modern 
cost system, after consigning without a pang of 
regret, a mass of old machinery to the scrap 
heap and putting new in its place, will never- 
theless, as he turns the pages of his religious 
journal, note with some skepticism the pro- 
posed building of a new piece of religious ma- 
chinery, and will make the half -conscious com- 
ment, "More organization, more new machin- 
ery, and for what end ? ' ' 

As advocates of Presbyterian Brotherhood, 
can we answer that question? As we ask 
our mother church to install this new and un- 
tried mechanism, can we show her any vital, 
underlying reasons, why we have a right to 
ask it, and why we believe it will accomplish 
something which is worth the doing, and will 
do it in a better way? 

The Brotherhood is an organization, and an 
organization is in its essence a piece of machin- 
ery; in this instance, religious machinery. It 
is not an end, but a means, and like other ma- 
chinery, not of itself a creator of power, but a 
developer and adapter of power. Conse- 
quently, in contemplation of this new mechan- 
ism for which we are asking a place, my 
thoughts have wandered to a consideration of 
some of the fundamental mechanical principles 
which are at the root of the effectual working 
of all machinery, and in search of some of these 



144 



THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 



truths I have found myself in the realm of 
physics. 

And I find among the laws of physics there 
are two great divisions: on the one hand, dy- 
namics, which is the science of motion, of move- 
ment, of power: on the other, statics, the sci- 
ence of bodies in equilibrium or balance. 
Power and balance are two hemispheres of the 
physical world. 

In the field of religious endeavor, particu- 
larly as it touches the lives of men, we need just 
those two elements, power and balance. Men 
need power, i. e., spiritual dynamic force, and 
they also need balance, which implies equilib- 
rium. In our examination of this new ma- 
chinery, we must therefore test it by the dy- 
namic and static principles in the lives of 
men. 

Can our Brotherhood assist in developing and 
adapting power? Can it assist in maintaining 
the equilibrium and balance of a man's life, 
swaying as it does, under manifold pressures 
from without and within? If so, it will have 
a definite basis for existence; and as the skilled 
mechanic applies the laws of physical dynamics 
and statics in his testing of new machinery, may 
we not consider for a moment, by analogy, 
whether the dynamics and statics of the reli- 
gious life of men, in other terms, their power 
and balance, will be served and furthered by 
this new piece of religious mechanism? 

Turning first to the dynamic side, the realm 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 145 

of movement, of power, of activity, we ob- 
serve : 

(1) That the successful application and use 
of power comes only through organized me- 
chanical effort, or in fine, through machinery. 
The history of inventive genius is the story of 
the organization of mechanical parts, that power 
might be developed and quickly and accurately 
transmitted in the greatest possible amount to 
the place where it is needed. A steam engine, 
disorganized, or in other words, dismantled, in 
a machine shop, is a sorry sight. Its parts, 
disunited and scattered, are powerless. But 
fit them together, organize your machinery, ad- 
just part to part, giving each some work to do 
in its proper place, and the organized machine 
will use the life giving power which it receives, 
will develop and apply it. 

Many a church contains the parts of disman- 
tled machinery; the parts are scattered, unor- 
ganized, hence cold and motionless. Here is 
a steam-box capable of holding power-giving 
pressure : here a piston rod firm and unyielding, 
but effective when in the right place: here a 
safety valve noisy and demonstrative at times, 
but occasionally very useful : and here is the 
air-brake, the check, and conservative force 
which sometimes avoids the collision. Do these 
parts of a machine lie scattered in your church ? 
If so, you dare not scorn the use of any or- 
ganizing force which will pick them up, adjust 
part to part, make a machine of them if you 
10 



146 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

will, but a machine throbbing with life, a means 
for the transmission of power. We believe that 
organized effort will utilize idle material in our 
churches, and will be a vehicle for the trans- 
mission of power to the places where it is most 
needed. That is one principle of religious dy- 
namics. 

(2) Again, it is a dynamic principle that there 
must be point of union or contact between the 
source of power and the object to be moved, 
or upon which the force is to operate. In the 
mechanical world, what forms this union? 
What connects the roaring furnace of the power 
house with the distant car to be moved on- 
ward? Nothing but machinery, organized, me- 
chanical parts. 

In the world about us, the object to be moved 
onward, or rather upward, is the great inert 
mass of worldliness, of commercialism, of mate- 
rialism, as we find it in the office, the factory, 
the market place. Here is the church, our 
power house, our generator of vital force; 
there is the opposing mass, the world of busi- 
ness, of labor, of careless indifference to the 
things of the spirit. The contact is lacking. 
There is another justification for the Brother- 
hood. The men of our church are in contact 
with the world. They meet it daily upon its 
great battle field, they are a part of its life. 
The minister cannot have that intimate point of 
contact. The faithful mothers in Israel touch 
but the fringe of the garment of that world's 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 147 

life. They have the power, but lack the con- 
tact. Bring the men into vital, active connec- 
tion with the church, her aims, her movements, 
and as they touch both the source of power and 
the world, you have built a bridge possibly a 
slender human span, but none the less a bridge, 
across the chasm which separates the church in 
her organized life from the seething, troubled, 
restless mass which we call the outside world. 
Establish the contact between the church and 
the world of men through organized manhood, 
and you apply to religious life another principle 
of dynamics and test your machinery by that 
truth. 

Many are the other principles of dynamics, 
the laws of force, which bear a greater or less 
analogy to the use and application of religious 
activity and power, but I am reminded that the 
dynamic side of a man's religious life, its 
power, its movement, its activity, is not its all. 
As in physics, so in religion there is a static 
side, which embraces the problem of maintain- 
ing equilibrium, in sustaining the man's bal- 
ance. A body remains in physical equilibrium 
becausQ the pressures upon it are equalized, 
and do not over-balance one another. The life 
of a man, social, moral, spiritual, is the result 
in part at least, of intangible, sometimes in- 
definable, pressures. Organization of every 
kind presses upon him: organized commercial- 
ism; organized political power; yes, organized 
evil. Often the one or the other pressure be- 



148 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

comes too great and the man's equilibrium is 
gone. Intensify too strongly the organized 
commercial pressure without some organized 
force to oppose it and the man loses his balance 
and falls into the slough of sordid money get- 
ting or active dishonesty. Let the pressures of 
passion or appetite become too strong for the 
other pressures and it destroys his equilibrium 
and sends him reeling into the gutter. A law 
of statics has been broken. To maintain the 
proper balance of the man, other strong, or- 
ganized countervailing pressures must be sup- 
plied. A host of organizations press upon him 
for a share of his thought and his life : organ- 
ized political effort, fraternal life, social life, 
commercial interest. Organization must be 
met with organization, if the life of the spirit 
is to have any part. Why not organize reli- 
gious effort of men among men, to supply a 
pressure on the other side, to assist in keeping 
the man's balance, to draw him aside from time 
to time in fraternal conference, and press upon 
him the truth, that there is a life beyond the 
counting room or the market place? Men need 
that pressure ; it can best be supplied by organ- 
ized effort. Pressure from without the church 
must be met by pressure from within, and thus 
we apply a truth which the science of statics 
brings to us. 

But, it may be urged, to create and maintain 
that balance in the life of men, you are trying 
to set up artificial props, and when they fall 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 149 

or are taken away, the man loses his balance. 
The prop may be a temporary necessity or aid 
to the individual man. It is true that something 
more must come. 

In transplanting a beautiful and stately plant 
in my garden, I have seen it droop and fall. I 
have then tried to follow the laws of statics and 
prop it up, supplying pressure here and pres- 
sure there, until it is again upright. The re- 
sult is not wholly satisfying; but even while 
temporary equilibrium is being maintained, a 
change appears and life comes and there is a 
vital flow of life giving fluid through its veins ; 
its leaves slowly unfold, its branches stiffen, 
the props fall, their work complete, and the 
plant sways safely before the pressures of the 
winds, but does not fall, because it has for it- 
self found the source of life, has drawn that 
vitality unto itself and is able to maintain its 
own balance, its own equilibrium, so long as it 
continues to drink in that life giving power. 

If our Brotherhood can so press upon the 
lives of men, by the prop of social comrade- 
ship, of intellectual interest, of active social 
endeavor for those about him, that the man's 
balance may be maintained against the great 
storms of the world which beat upon him, until, 
as Channing finely says, "the spiritual shall 
grow up unbidden and unconscious, through the 
common," then it will have found its place in 
the life of the men of our common faith. But 
that hidden, vital life must come, must "grow 



150 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

up through the common, ' ' must in the end pen- 
etrate every method, every fibre of our organ- 
ization, or it will remain mere machinery, and 
will not become a living, breathing organism. 

But, it is urged, that this is a proposition 
to install more machinery into our religious 
life, and machinery is so prone to get out of 
order, and we fear that in many a church, some 
day there will be a rumble, a roar in this mech- 
anism, and there may not be an expert mechanic 
at hand and then a crash will come, and after 
that, silence, and the church will be strewn with 
the wreckage. 

Come with me into a great power house. 
There is the harmony, the quiet working of 
mighty dynamic force. The great fly wheels 
turn swiftly, but as silently as the planets in 
their courses, and the mighty shafts rock to and 
fro with the silent movements of a monster of 
the deep. It is the quiet of perfect adjustment 
and use of power. But presently a rumble is 
heard, a hiss of heated friction of part with 
part, and then the sullen muttered roar of a 
giant in agony. But the watchful master engi- 
neer, from his vantage ground, notes the symp- 
toms, hastens to the place, and with a skillful 
touch of adjustment he calms the pain of the 
great mechanism and pours upon it the oil of 
soothing, his touch being as the touch of a cool 
hand upon a fevered brow, and once more the 
wheels turn swiftly and silently, and the shafts 
swing with the quiet harmony of perfect power. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 151 

In this Brotherhood of men, this machinery 
which has come into the life of your church, 
possibly friction will come, noise, outcry, lack 
of power due to want of adjustment. Have 
we not a watchful master Craftsman, whose 
touch upon the souls of men is strong and sure ; 
who can pour upon them the oil of his spirit, 
soothing the heated parts of our organized life 
until harmony and perfect power shall come 
again? 

Shall we not urge at least a testing of this 
new machinery by our church, because we have 
reason to believe that it will aid in the devel- 
opment and application of power, will carry the 
power where it is most needed, will supply a 
valuable and needed point of contact between 
the church and the world, and will assist in 
maintaining the balance of men amid the pres- 
sures of the strong forces about them, until life 
comes and has a chance to grow in the midst 
of the storms of this world? That life, the 
church needs. To that end, it needs the Broth- 
erhood. 

H. C. Gara.— Our speaker has spoken of keep- 
ing the machine in perfect balance. Some four 
or five years ago a gentleman stepped up to me 
in Philadelphia and said, "Gara, a fellow paid 
me the greatest compliment I know of." I 
said, "What was it?" He said, "He called me 
a double crank, ' ' and I said, ' ' Double crank ? I 
fail to see the compliment," He said; "It is. 



152 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

A single crank is a crank that is never in bal- 
ance." Now let us hear from these double 
cranks for they are always in balance. 

W. M. Hindmast. — Touching the question of 
power, I had a friend in a theological seminary 
who wished to become a missionary. The of- 
ficers of the seminary hesitated to my knowledge 
for more than three months, because he was so 
poor a linguist. They questioned whether he 
could learn the language or not. By and by, 
they acceded to his request and he went to 
China. He had been in the compound but two 
days when he went out on the streets and came 
back and told the missionaries, "I have had my 
first conversation in Chinese." "You have," 
they said; "why you don't know anything 
about Chinese." "Oh, yes I do," he said. 
"How was it?" they asked. He said: "I saw 
a great big moon-faced Chinaman coming up 
the street and he came to me in all his glory. 
He looked at me and then extended his hand 
and said something in Chinese. I shook my 
head, and said something in English. He 
shook his head. He seemed to be a little bit 
puzzled. He looked at me and grasped my 
hand with much warmth, and said, ' Jesus.' 
And I looked at him and said, ' Jesus;' and he 
looked down into my soul and I looked into his 
soul." He said, "Oh, that was a glorious con- 
versation, my first conversation in Chinese!" 
"It is the life of Jesus Christ sustaining me, ' ' 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 153 

said Paul, and every Christian worker and 
body of workers such as our Brotherhood must 
be bound up in that one blessed word, "Jesus," 
and our power must come from him. Apply 
the life of Christ to the machinery of the Broth- 
erhood and we will have a perfect machine. 

Mr. Gara. — The need of the Brotherhood in 
our church is the question. 

Mervin J. Eckels, D.D. — I have listened with 
great interest to this address and I have just 
been thinking of the form of power that we 
could make use of, and I could not deny that it 
might be met with the objection to which refer- 
ence has been made that the church is itself sup- 
posed to furnish the power and is supposed 
through its members to furnish the point of con- 
tact. I cannot get rid of this objection, but do 
ask that an answer be given as to why we need 
a machine within a machine. It is not an objec- 
tion at all, but I am not clear in my mind how I 
could make answer to that. I should be glad 
to hear something to cover that point. It is the 
only point. 

Paul C. Martin. — I am not a mechanic. I 
do not know that I can discuss the question 
along mechanical lines, but it seems it is simply 
a case of extension of the machinery, as when 
the object to be moved, or the part upon which 
the power is to operate, has grown distant 
from the original power plant, and we have to 



154 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

extend the belting and the power. It is not ex- 
actly installing a new plant, but an extension 
of the belting and shafting to the new place 
of contact. 

Ezra Newcome, D.D. — I will just give a prac- 
tical illustration by saying that we have had 
a Brotherhood in the First Westminster Parish 
for over eight years. During that time we have 
had two series of evangelistic services. As I 
look over the list of men who came into the 
church at that time I discover that almost every 
one of them came because through the Brother- 
hood we had, during the previous two or 
three years, come into some kind of friendly 
and sympathetic touch with them, so that when 
the opportunity arose the men of the Brother- 
hood could go to these men whom we knew in a 
personal way and say to them : " You are stand- 
ing on the edge of things. Come inside." The 
Brotherhood was extending the power just as 
Mr. Martin has said, to reach those men who 
are a little too far away for the ordinary church 
agency, a little too far away for the pastor and 
the evangelist, but just near enough to be 
reached by personal touch by a friend and with 
the point from which to make the contact. And 
the men who came into our church came by the 
power we were able to exert through the Broth- 
erhood, and it will do as much for you. 

Mr. Halsey. — I may cast a little light on the 
question. You may have seen the machine 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 155 

which makes baskets. It does everything but 
think. Its motions are almost human. The 
material goes in at one end and the finished 
basket comes out the other, and the ordinary 
motions of machinery in a circle seem to be re- 
versed. They are erratic. I asked the me- 
chanic what the principle was, and he said the 
fundamental principle was that of the cam 
wheel, an originally circular wheel into the cir- 
cumference of which projections have been 
forced to meet special needs along the line 
of movement in that machine, and wherever 
a peculiar motion of the machinery was re- 
quired to do a special thing the line of the 
wheel was deflected until finally the wheel was 
not circular but undulating. Now I believe we 
have in the church the foundation, the circle, 
and that this special organization such as our 
Brotherhood with which we mean to do a spe- 
cial work, is the cam upon the circle of the 
church put forth for a special call to do a spe- 
cial thing. 

Mr. Roberts. — I believe we ought to have the 
Brotherhood in the church in order to get the 
men at work. We have evangelistic committees 
in the Brotherhood going out to some of the 
neighborhood churches, and on one occasion a 
short time ago a committee went into the north- 
ern part of the city. The pastor told me that 
at the conclusion of that service every man in 
that church had caught the spirit of doing some- 



156 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

» 

thing himself, and it was the best service he 
had had in his church for many years. I be- 
lieve that is exactly the thing we want to do in 
order to press the need of the Brotherhood in 
the churches so that the members can teach 
other men what to do. 

Mr. Wettersteiet. — Just a word in specific 
answer. It is a well recognized principle with 
those who work among men that the men out- 
side of the church, or the men in the church 
who have failed in their religious professions, 
will respond better to a force of organized men 
than they will to any other religious agency, 
and Brother Eckles may say to the people who 
object to additional machinery in his church, 
that there is no agency which will reach men 
that is so effective as organized laymen devoting 
their time specifically to bringing men to Christ. 

Mr. Fatjt. — Many of us would like to have 
an outline of the programmes of the Brother- 
hoods already organized, telling us how often 
the meetings are held, what you discuss in 
these meetings, what forms of Christian serv- 
ice are undertaken, such as personal work, 
philanthropy. Many of us would like to hear 
the briefest possible statement from the Broth- 
erhoods which have heretofore been insti- 
tuted. 

E. B. Bigger, D.D. — I wish to answer in six 

sentences why we should have Brotherhoods : — 

First, if we want men we must win them. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 157 

Second, if we want men to be useful we must 
use them. Third, if we want them to be inter- 
ested in Christian work we must interest them. 
Fourth, if we do not teach and practice Broth- 
erhood, some other body will. Fifth, if all our 
societies are for young people, children, and 
the older women, where will the men take hold 
if we do not provide a work for them in our 
churches ? Sixth, if the men are won to Chris- 
tian fellowship and work their families will fol- 
low them ; the hearts of the women and children 
will be gladdened and all will be one in their 
interests, labors, and hopes for Christ's king- 
dom in the home. 

H. C. Gara. — Last Sunday night I had the 
privilege of speaking at a Brotherhood meeting 
which took place at the close of the evening 
service in a Baptist church. I am a Presbyter- 
ian but I was in a Baptist church. Afterwards, 
I learned that out of forty-two men converted 
to the church in that slum district, seven are re- 
formed drunkards. Now if we want anything 
to illustrate the need of that in the church — 
I don't know whether your churches have 
drunkards, but they have some about the 
church if they are not in — and I don't know 
anything that better illustrates the need of the 
Brotherhood in the church than the possibility 
of getting reformed drunkards into the church, 
and we will get reformed Christians into the 
church too. 



158 THE PEESBYTEEIAN BE0THEBH00D 

Mr. Palmee.— The question I wish to ask and 
ask for information is this : Our present theme 
is, "The development of the Brotherhood in 
the church. " In my church, and I presume in 
yours, a few of the men are interested in these 
things. Their hands are filled with Christian 
work. Many men are not interested in any 
kind of Christian work. How are we going to 
develop these in the individual churches? That 
is the question I would like to have answered. 

Me. McLastahaet. — Our church is the oldest 
in Baltimore and men in it do not know each 
other ; men going there all their lives, probably, 
have never spoken to each other. Nobody in- 
troduces strangers to the other members. Now 
we formed, about eighteen months ago, a men's 
society in the church; started out on social 
lines ; began with a social meeting ; had a prom- 
inent speaker, and introduced everybody to 
everybody else. Since then we have got it in a 
more spiritual way; developed a boys' club; got 
one hundred and seventy or one hundred and 
eighty boys in the club. We have done some 
outside prayer meeting work in South Balti- 
more. Before we began these things every- 
body said, "We do not know what to do. We 
have nothing to do with the church. There is 
no place for us." After we formed this society 
and got this thing started, one line of work af- 
ter another opened up until we are getting every 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 159 

man in the church interested in some position 
that he can fill. 

Mr. Moment, of New Jersey. — I simply want 
to say that three or four of these questions may 
be answered in the same way. We formed in 
our church a club of one hundred and seventy- 
five members two or three years ago. We have 
that club because we believe the men of the 
church ought to be organized, and the idea we 
hold up before the men is not that they should 
have a men's club but that there is a certain 
amount of work that the average man ought to 
do. We believe the only way they can do that 
work is to organize. The object is not the club, 
but the work, and that is the reason I believe in 
the vitality of this organization. It is not a 
question of organizations in the church, the 
question is as to their utility, and I believe or- 
ganization will go on whatever we do or decide 
because as Dr. McAfee said, the men have seen 
something; they have had a vision, and they 
will go on and we cannot by a vote do away with 
men's organizations. They will not perish. 
The men have seen the work and they must do 
it, and the best way is to organize. 



XII 

BKOTHERHOOD: ITS DEVELOPMENT IN 
THE CHUECH 

BY JOSEPH ERNEST MCAFEE 

The church is a living organism. It grows. 
Its parts and members are not the fabrication 
of somebody's hammer and saw. When some- 
body so far mistakes the genius of its construc- 
tion as to inflict upon it his carpenter methods, 
the weather and the exigencies of the elements 
soon make his mistake apparent. The church 
must grow. It suffers from being patched up ; 
when the patches begin to sluff off, the spec- 
tacle is the chagrin of men and angels. 

The Brotherhood is a symptom of growth ; it 
came because it had to ; it is an indication of the 
church 's quickened life. Or if it is not, may the 
Lord have mercy upon us and upon it. We 
shall soon be in his hands with the paint all 
rubbed off and looking so run down that we shall 
be sorry ever to have been exposed to the 
weather. If the Brotherhood shall be con- 
strued as somebody's patch nailed on in the ex- 
citement and stress of the moment to shut out 
the weather for a season or two, why, that is 

160 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 161 

what it is ; and we shall be compelled to put up 
with its unsightliness as best we may, until 
some new carpenter shall arrive, to strike off 
the warped clapboards and decorate the church 
with a new patch. But if the Brotherhood is 
what you and I have full faith to believe it is, 
and must commit ourselves anew and anew to 
making it become — an evidence of the Church's 
quickened life — then we do not witness here 
the awakening of a giant to stretch himself and 
try his strength. Each new trial will quicken 
all the vital processes, and put him in finer 
fettle for doughtier tasks. 

Methodism is a terrible affliction. I mean, 
you must understand methodism. Methodism 
as an historical development of the church uni- 
versal, is a benign display of the divine grace. 
The Methodists are the chosen of the Lord, 
God's saints set to sanctify all the church. But 
methodists are the peculiar affliction of each 
branch of believers, permitted of an inscrutable 
providence as the church's thorn in the flesh; 
used of the divine grace, doubtless, but effectual 
only in the buffeting of the church into a sense 
of human incapacity. It has been the fate of 
some of the most promising movements of the 
church's history to fall into the hands of the 
methodists. AVhat sets out with being the gra- 
cious display of vital functioning, winds up with 
being a machine whose creaking and rumbling 
drowns the voice of the worshipers and shocks 
away all sentiments of devotion. What starts 
11 



162 'JHE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

out with being a veritable moving of the divine 
, Spirit through the church, comes out ere long 
into being a grotesque god on wheels which the 
church must forever after use its good energies 
in tugging along in the ruts. The church has 
often found itself engaged with its own devises 
somewhat after the manner of the old negro 
Isam, who, when attacked by a belligerent goat, 
seized the animal by the horns. Straining 
every muscle to hold on in sheer self defense, 
he shouted aloud to his old master, "Massa 
Cra'fud! Massa Cra'fud! Come here, Massa 
Cra'fud, and help dis nigger turn dis goat 
loose." It has oftentimes been found easier to 
take hold than to let go. 

I have not yet heard any one say with pre- 
cision just what this Brotherhood is to accom- 
plish, nor offer minute direction as to how it is 
to go about its business. I hope to the bottom 
of my heart no one will try. None has yet ap- 
peared with hammer and saw to cut up the 
Brotherhood's lumber for it and tell it precisely 
how the sticks are to be nailed together. 
Therein appears the pledge of the Brother- 
hood's richest life. Pray God that none may 
shackle the men with restricting rules as to 
when and where and how their activities shall 
be exercised. May the Lord deliver the 
Brotherhood from the bondage of method, the 
intolerance of formularies, the grind of ma- 
chinery for the machine's sake. Let us learn 
the characteristic American art of utilizing the 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 163 

junk heap. Worn out machinery belongs there, 
and when there is where it belongs, so there can 
be no sacrilege in putting it there. I hope the 
Brotherhood will never abrogate the principle 
of local option in church enterprise. The vari- 
ous agencies of the organism need to grow by a 
wholesome cooperation, not by a slavish mimic- 
ry each of the other. It is to aim at the true 
unity of diversity, the ideal e pluribus unum 
of efficiency; as Herbert Spencer might say, the 
final homogeneity of a facile heterogeneity. 
The Brotherhood must depend upon its purpose 
to define and cement its unity, and not depend 
upon its modes and forms. The letter will kill ; 
depend upon the spirit to give life. 

There you come upon the true_motive power 
and moving efficiency of this enterprise. It 
is a tremendous spiritual force. It has too 
much of the life of the spirit in it to be molded 
and chopped off in rigid blocks. It lives, and 
if it is fit further to exist, it must continue to 
live. It is a great spiritual energy. 

"Which does not mean that it froths and effer- 
vesces, but implies quite the contrary. It lives, 
and, please God, is always to gain its energy 
from the life of the Spirit. I have said that 
fortunately no one has attempted to prescribe 
just what the Brotherhood is to accomplish, nor 
define minutely the scope of its operations. Yet 
it may be ventured that no movement in the 
history of the modern church has sprung from 
so unequivocal a desire to get something done* 



164 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

Every one who has sounded the mind of the 
church's manhood must have discovered a 
deeply moving revolt against a spirituality gone 
a-glimmering, an impassive, do-nothing relig- 
ion. This movement means that the manhood 
of the Presbyterian Church has grown ashamed 
of itself and of the society in which it dwells 
and of the supineness of a church which ac- 
tively leads in too few of the movements of so- 
ciety's best life, and follows but languidly in 
some others, contributing but slightly of her 
energies either in leadership or in backing. If 
there is anything the men of the Presbyterian 
Church do wish, it is to do things, to make their 
churchmanship a power and not merely a pro- 
fession, to push and to pull in all the might of 
their manhood, striving toward the worthy ends 
revealed by grace and gumption. When I call 
this a spiritual movement, I mean to claim for 
it not less the power of the spirit than the lib- 
erty of the spirit. 

Well then, what is this movement to get ac- 
complished? That is what I say again I do not 
know, — and am mighty glad nobody else pre- 
tends to. But that it is to get something done, 
there is abundant token at every turn. It 
stands for, and please God will everywhere is- 
sue in, manly, Christly activity. It may be said 
in the large what will be accomplished. It has 
often been said from this platform, with vary- 
ing degrees of emphasis upon this or that de- 
tail, and by those of vision from varying points 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 165 

of view. But none pretends to know all it will 
accomplish. It will do so many things they can- 
not be catalogued. God only knows what it 
will not do. Even if it shall make mistakes, 
the divine patience will doubtless not be sur- 
prised, only saddened. There is certainly no 
lack of things needing to be done. 

If the deeper history of this movement were 
traced it would be found to spring from a quick- 
ening of conscience, and it will issue, depend 
upon it, in a progressive and deepening con- 
sciencefulness. Men demand the right to live 
and do business and complete the day's work 
with clean hands and pure hearts. They de- 
mand the right to succeed in life's avocation 
and be honest at the same time. The men of 
the church mean to guarantee that right to all. 
They mean to make the church an organized 
force for righteousness, in loyalty to the 
church's traditions. They have no notion of 
allowing churchmanship to be the cloak of those 
whose methods in the world of affairs demand 
such gloss of concealment; nor will they allow 
activity in the church to become the popular 
diversion of those whom intellectual and moral 
incapacity shuts out of success in the more 
strenuous lines of endeavor. Men mean to 
make churchly obligations strenuous enough to 
furnish field for the exercise of the most 
doughty. 

The church through this movement is to be 
set upon serious endeavor. It will not be so 



166 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

easy to attempt only easy things, and then con- 
gratulate ourselves so complacently upon our 
success. First thing you know, the things 
really needing to be done will get done. Our 
best present achievement will appear how far 
short of sufficient, as we contemplate the dry 
rot and the dank rot of so many sorts of evil 
eating into the life of our society. The real 
issues of social and individual regeneration are 
coming to the light, and sturdy men are being 
struck purposeful by the revelation. It is be- 
ginning to appear how deep, into the moralities, 
runs what ails us as a people. The real mis- 
sion of the church in our society is being dis- 
covered. The church means no longer to stand 
aloof but it presumes to press in, to be militant 
against the bad and to champion the good. 

It is not posible, is it, that these churchmen 
will dabble in politics ? No, they will not. One 
may not presume to say when and where their 
enterprises may touch upon politics, but assur- 
ance may be given that when and where they 
do, these men will not dabble. They will go in 
with coats off and sleeves rolled up to the 
shoulder. On the Sunday preceding election 
day I stepped out of an old, old church in one 
of our large cities, and found the most of the 
session collected on the street corner talking 
politics. If I may believe my blinking eyes, 
there was a halo of godliness overshadowing the 
spot where they stood ! The serious righteous- 
ness of their conversation converted the street 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 167 

corner into a very Shiloh. They came finally 
to no unanimous decision on any point, except 
that each would make his franchise count for 
what would make, in his judgment, for the com- 
pletest righteousness in their community. 

The church is not a political club, and if any 
one has the first notion of committing the folly 
of attempting to turn it into one, a little expe- 
rience ought to convince him of his blunder. 
This movement among men offers no sugges- 
tion that the church is going into politics. But 
it does indicate, among other things, that 
churchmen take themselves seriously as citizens 
of a Christian commonwealth, and that they 
accept their churchmanship as committing them 
to the business of making their society in real- 
ity what it is in name — Christian. 

Men of the church are getting together be- 
cause they crave the moral support each of 
the other in the intensely spiritual labor of 
drawing individual fellowmen under the mas- 
tership of the Man of Galilee, the supreme ob- 
ligation of every man ; and because they de- 
mand the puissance of mass movements in the 
task of making the spiritual kingdom of the 
Christ of God an actuality in their day. 

There are no new-fangled ideas being ex- 
ploited to revolutionize and recast the church's 
ideals, as I take it. It is devoutly to be hoped 
that some things w,ill henceforth be performed 
differently. Some of the present methods of 
the church enterprise must be taken bravely 



168 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

in hand for readjustment if any real progress 
is to be made. Some of our brand-new prob- 
lems must be faced as such, and the utmost sa- 
gacity of American ingenuity and the finest 
forcefulness of American energy must be 
brought into play in their solution. But there 
is essentially nothing new under the sun except 
goodness and badness, and they are already as 
old as God and the Devil. This is no new de- 
velopment in the church; it is the old church 
taking on new life, feeling her keep of the di- 
vine providence, shamed out of her laziness by 
the divine grace, quickened by spiritual endue- 
ments into spiritual aggressiveness. No new 
departments of church endeavor are to be es- 
tablished except those demanded by a new spir- 
itual opportunity. No old agencies worthy of 
support are to feel less than others the impetus 
of this new pulsing of energy. This movement 
means that the church of Christ is throbbing 
with new spiritual vigor. It does not mean that 
the church has previously fallen from grace, 
since it is the Presbyterian Church and its Cal- 
vinism would not hear to such a thing. 

This movement does mean, however, that the 
church is falling into grace, and that it is tak- 
ing the plunge with right good grace, for once 
not stickling for the sprinkling process. It 
means the least of all that the activity of the 
church is being methodized, and it means most 
of all that all of its methods are being spiritual- 
ized. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 169 

Spirituality is the capacity for and practice 
of vision-seeing. The prophet is the consum- 
mate artist of the spiritual functions. The 
men of the church have been seeing things ; that 
is what ails them. They will not awaken to 
shake off the delusion with a jest. Their vision 
is not a delusion. They have seen, and are to 
see more clearly, what no man whose heart God 
has touched can see and not thrill with the 
energy of achievement. They have caught the 
vision of the kingdom of God, a redeemed so- 
ciety, the tabernacle of God, established among 
men. They have seen the New Jerusalem com- 
ing down out of heaven, and, best of all, coming 
down out of heaven. You may expect now to 
see some of the hard tasks of the church's 
mission of redemption undertaken and brought 
to a glorious issue. Individuals and sections 
of society hard to reach, the men will undertake 
to reach. Inspired by their vision, I expect to 
see men rise above the pettiness which strives 
for the triumph of the moment, and sits down 
impotent before achievements too large for to- 
day. 

I expect to see men undertaking such large 
things and such hard things and such long 
things, as shall give evidence of their living 
the life of the spirit, wherein they partake of 
the very thought and counsels of God. That 
the business of the church is big and hard will 
be its inspiration. An eagerness to undertake 
such business will be the mark of having seen 



170 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

God and learned of him his age-long, eternity- 
wide intentions for his church. Spiritual vis- 
ion is power. If the men have really caught 
the vision of a saved manhood, a world fit for 
God to dwell in, and fit for honest men to do 
business in and serve God in and minister in 
good conscience to their fellows in, then — every 
crushed and enthralled fellowman look up and 
hope, and the Christ of God accept the fulfill- 
ment of his soul-travail ; for the spiritual king- 
dom of the Saviour of men will become, not as a 
vague promise, but as a present reality. 



XIII 
BROTHERHOOD: RESPONSIBILITIES 

BY CHAS. W. GORDON, D.D., ("rAJLPH CONNOR") 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: — I come 
from a country that is somewhat unknown, I 
am afraid, to many of you. I had begun to 
think during these last two or three years that 
Canada had been discovered by the American 
people. But last night that conviction of mine 
received rather a rude shock. For, as I was 
sitting at a table with a gentleman who seemed 
to be possessed of really more than ordinary 
intelligence, and we were taking a quiet drink 
together (it was an American drink, and so 
quite safe) he asked me, when I was talking 
about Winnipeg a little and the country up 
there, "Why, do you grow wheat up there V 9 
I took a drink. We do the things there — we 
try to — just as you do here; those things that 
God lays upon us and from which we cannot 
escape. 

I believe that the influence of this conven- 
tion will not cease to be felt until it has reached 
across the border, and away up back over the 
prairies and over the mountains of British Col- 

171 



172 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

umbia. I remember bearing once my very- 
good and well-beloved friend, Henry Drum- 
mond, tell a story of a man on one of bis west- 
ern trips. Wbile driving along tbe western 
coast among tbe big trees, be was seeking to get 
information about tbe trees from the stage 
driver; and as tbey came from one big tree to 
anotber be would ask him, "How much lumber 
do you think there is in that tree ? ' ' The driver 
would say, "I don't know." As they came to 
another tree he would ask, "How thick is that 
tree ? ' ' The driver would say, * ' I don 't know. ' ' 
As they came to another, "How big round is 
that tree?" "I don't know." At last they 
came to a great tree lying prone. "I say," 
said the man, "how much cordwood would that 
tree cut up into?" The driver said, "Say, 
stranger, I don't know, but when it fell the echo 
lasted two weeks." I believe the echo of this 
convention will resound over the continent, and 
it is my very bumble hope that I may be able 
to carry back with me something of the strength 
and sanity and business alertness — which is a 
very difficult thing for a clergyman to carry- 
something of the business alertness to my own 
country and our own work. 

I said in our country we try to do the work 
that God lays upon us. I would have you think 
— as perhaps you are not able to think — that 
in that country, which you are beginning to 
know and to discover, we have perhaps the 
largest home mission field in the world. For 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 173 

practically all that lies west of the great lakes 
and between the Rockies and the Pacific Ocean 
is one great mission field. It is true there are 
lines of railway pushing their way across, but 
those lines simply mean the extension of the 
field; and for more than a thousand miles, for 
more than fifteen hundred miles one way, and 
from three hundred to nine hundred miles the 
other way, there stretches before our church 
that great mission field. And so our work 
takes on a special feature, a kind of type of its 
own, and that type I have wished to put in this 
way and in this phrase : 

The business of the Christian missionary 
with us is the business of piloting. We know 
there in the western country missionaries and 
ministers do not always receive the courtesy 
and reverence and respect that their cloth de- 
mands, and so they are called by various names. 
The common name, and the very common name, 
the name that has seemed to me the very ac- 
ceptable name, is the name of the ' ' Sky Pilot. ' ' 
Sometimes he is called by other names more 
graphic but not quite so euphonious, as for in- 
stance, "The Fire Escape." But I accept the 
name of the "Sky Pilot" for the missionary. 
I accept the name of the "Sky Pilot" for the 
Christian man, and I do believe that it sets be- 
fore us — and I hope to set it before you this 
morning — one phase, at least, of the great re- 
sponsibility that lies upon Christian manhood. 
Now before we assume any responsibility I be- 



174 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

lieve it is a wise thing for us by careful exam- 
ination and by elimination of things that are not 
true and are not real, to discover just exactly 
what is the thing we as Christian men must in- 
dividually take upon our shoulders, hold fast 
to, and try with what manhood we have to set- 
tle. What is the responsibility represented in 
this movement of the Brotherhood? "What is 
the responsibility that I think of when I say that 
every Christian man is a pilot? I want to say 
first of all by way of elimination there are sev- 
eral things we are not going to assume to do 
or become responsible for. For instance, I 
gladly say it is not my responsibility and no 
part of my work as a Christian man to save men 
from sin. When I was younger and I think 
more ambitious than I am now I used to think 
it was part of my business to save men, and I 
gave much time to it, and I gave the passion of 
my heart to it at times when God bore hard up- 
on me, but in my despair I realized at last to my 
great relief that to save men was not my busi- 
ness. It is not our business, it is not my re- 
sponsibility as a pilot to make men good, to 
take the evil out of their hearts, to make them 
love high and pure things. This is not my re- 
sponsibility. But this : It is my responsibility 
that I be a pilot to men. It is my responsibility 
that by what I am and by the methods I adopt 
and by the forces I gather unto my soul from 
whatever source those forces may come of in- 
telligence or of judgment or of a warmer and 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 175 

deeper force of the heart, I recognize this as 
my responsibility, that I stand between men 
who do not know the way to Christ, whom to 
discover is everlasting life. So my responsi- 
bility that I gladly assume, assume because the 
best experience of my life is this, that I stand 
before the lost men and show them the way. 
If it is my good fortune, by God's grace, that 
I do bring a man to Christ, then I feel that I 
have done the thing that my Saviour, my Lord 
and Master asked of me when he said, "Go out 
and disciple men; go and bring them to me." 
It is a vast relief to lay the burden of saving 
upon the Saviour. It is a vast relief to lay 
this work of creating anew the heart of men 
upon the Creator himself. So let us say and 
pass away from it that the responsibility that 
the Brotherhood here represents, that all 
Christian service represents, is simply this: 
That by the light in us, by what God has done 
for us, and all that we have been able to gather 
to ourselves, we shall show men the way to 
Christ. 

I would like to say before leaving that part 
of my subject that this responsibility is not 
something we take on as a kind of extra service. 
It is not that. The ordinary Christian man has 
a certain amount of ordinary work and a cer- 
tain number of ordinary obligations to fulfill, 
but that the man who aspires to high things 
and to a higher type of service will assume this 
responsibility of showing men the way. I 



176 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

would like to feel anew, I would like especially 
to ask you gentlemen to feel anew to-day, that 
this responsibility is the supreme fact of Chris- 
tianity, and not something we can either take to 
ourselves or lay aside. We can lay it aside, 
yes, we may lay it aside as the man who lays 
aside the duty to defend his country from inva 
sion, but at the expense of honor and manhood. 
We may lay aside this responsibility and give 
it to certain of those who we think are inter- 
ested above the ordinary run of Christians and 
let them be the leaders and guides to Christ, 
but we do so at the expense of our sense of 
loyalty to him who himself first led us, first 
showed us the beautiful way, and then said, 
i i Let this be a light unto other men. ' ' 

Now suppose a man, face to face with this 
work of piloting, essays to begin his work. I 
want to select two or three things that ought 
to test him in his thought and feeling. I take 
this as the first: The man who undertakes to 
show the way must first himself be certain 
about the way. I was lost only once on the 
prairie. That was a very trying experience. 
I was always so much afraid of being lost that 
I was continually taking my bearings. But 
once I was lost; and the reason was that I 
didn't pay any attention to my bearings, and 
the reason for that was I had a fellow wdth me 
who thought he knew the way. I followed him 
careless of my surroundings until he discovered 
first and then I that we were both lost. He 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 177 

was lost and he had lost me. So that I believe 
the very fact that we have to assume the re- 
sponsibility for the showing of the way to any 
man makes it tremendously important that we 
should see clearly and know definitely certain 
things about the way. Thank God, we do not 
need to know all about it! Thank God, we do 
not need to know all about Christian truth and 
doctrine ! How good it is that God does not bless 
a man in his service in this work of piloting 
in proportion to the extent of his theological or 
other knowledge. But, brethren, it is abso- 
lutely essential — and my short experience in 
this business and all the experience of you men 
here responds to mine in this — that we must 
know a few things and we must know them ab- 
solutely. 

May I ask your consideration and forgive- 
ness if I refer here to "The Pilot" as known 
through the book, "The Sky Pilot' '? I do so 
because I know more about him and his work. 
And if I refer now and then to this friend and 
and brother of mine, I always see him out there 
upon his broncho — if I do you will understand 
I am not advertising ' ' The Sky Pilot, ' ' because 
I think all of you have read it. I think at the 
first service the pilot conducted in the Swan 
Creek saloon — you will remember how the 
young chap fresh from college began with the 
story of feeding the five thousand — and after he 
was through Hi, I think, spoke up, and said, "I 
say, how many loaves did you say ? ' ' " Five. ' ' 
12 



178 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

"And how many men there?" "Five thou- 
sand." He said, "Well, that is a little too 
unusual for me." And as Bill said after- 
wards to his friend, remonstrating upon the 
interference of this youth, he had floundered 
round worse than a rooster in the dark. He 
had. The boy was not good at arguing. 
He had not his evidence clearly in his head 
and was not strong in reasoning. But as the 
day progressed and as he saw the men progress 
from one stage of carousal into another this 
is the thing that came into his mind: "I know 
I am right. I know I am right." My dear 
friends, you will be challenged in a thousand 
y/ays. You will be challenged at every point 
of your work, but you want to be able to stand 
back and say this: "When I speak about the 
things of God I am not going to speak widely, 
' But I do know the things whereof I speak.' " 
You will find as you begin your work that there 
will be many things about which you must 
frankly confess ignorance. The pilot who 
knows everything and knows about all countries 
and all trails is not the pilot for me. I want the 
pilot that knows this trail, that runs over this 
prairie and through yonder canyon and 
emerges at my cabin, and if he knows that, that 
is good enough for me. It does not disturb 
me if he does not know the trails that run off 
in this direction. So let us confess frankly to 
men, and they will be surprised to hear you 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 179 

make confession that there are a number of 
things you do not know. 

After you have thus taken him into your con- 
fidence do not let him go without telling him 
this, too, that there are two or three things 
that you do know a great deal better than he 
does. 

Now, perhaps I may pass on to say that 
another very important qualification for us 
who are trying to show men the way is not 
simply the sense of certainty about a few 
things, but it is wise for us to gather up these 
things and relate them, not to Bibles or 
churches or creeds or organizations — these are 
difficult to carry around — but relate these few 
similitudes of yours to Jesus Christ, to the great 
Person. Men who cannot appreciate theologi- 
cal distinctions or theological definitions re- 
spond to the touch of the human heart and a 
human hand. You remember in that religious 
poem, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, how the 
man so sorely afflicted going through the dark 
valley, whose very first hope and whose very 
first inspiration was gathered from this : In the 
darkness, while all those sounds were about 
him, coming up through the depths, struggling, 
feeling his way, he heard the voice of a man. 
My dear friends, after all God himself cannot 
get at us until we see him in form. It is for 
this that we have Jesus Christ among us. So 
take our similitudes, our few truths — I only 
had about three when I began to preach to the 



180 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

men in Black Kock — but take your similitudes 
and link them to the great present. They will 
carry a man a long way. May I say this also ? 
With that sense of certitude directed to Jesus 
Christ I would add this : A sense of possession ; 
a sense of worth. There is nothing that so 
demoralizes our forces in making an attack or 
approach to men whom we think we should like 
to lead in a way, nothing demoralizes us as 
when we look at them and discover that they 
are so perfectly content with themselves. They 
are sleek and well-to-do; they have nothing 
amiss with them; they want nothing; and you, 
the poor little missionary, what can you give 
them? This is the overpowering sense that 
comes upon a man. And may I refer to the 
western work again? There comes a man 
who makes his entry into a town in the full, 
splendid swing of its work and its triumphant 
cries — He slips in. He is there to do a certain 
work. Nobody wants him. Nobody needs him. 
I remember a pilot who slipped into a mining 
town and the paper came out the next day with 
a very strong protest. This paper, by the way, 
eliminated all capitals from its type. Even the 
name of Almighty God was spelled with a small 
"G-." This paper announced that this partic- 
ular settler was absolutely unnecessary to the 
community and the sooner he departed the 
better. Eeflect on the sensation I have no 
doubt the missionary had in his own mind! 
But a man must recover himself from that. A 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 181 

man must get so deep down into the facts of 
which he has knowledge, and must so refresh 
his memory of these facts, that there grows 
into him a sense of worth and possession. He 
wants so to think about the things of life about 
him and so to fit them into his own experience 
that he will be able to say what the pilot of 
Swan Creek said that night when the boys were 
all drunk and carousing and making a horrible 
exhibition of their weakness, degradation, and 
need — this was the word that came to him — 
his first expression was, "I know I am right," 
and, his second was, "They cannot do without 
Him." Brethren, let me say it will help you, 
as it has helped me many and many a time, to 
look men in the face, though they are rich and 
increased with goods and seem to need nothing, 
and you will discover that they are poor and 
wretched and miserable and blind and naked, 
and they shall have no gold, tinsel, and raiment 
to sell, and no eye salve with which they may 
anoint their eyes and see. 

If we move on toward our man with this 
sense of richness about us it will give a dignity 
to our whole bearing. It will give a sense of 
strength to our attack that will make it almost 
impossible for a man to resist. At least it will 
prevent this and it is a thing hard to bear; 
it will prevent the man from being perfectly 
easy and perfectly comfortable when we go 
away and leave him with his poverty, or, as 
he may think, with his wealth. He may have 



182 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

a kind of vision through his blindness that 
there are certain things in that man 's heart and 
life and experience that he does not possess 
after all, and as he thinks of it there may grow 
into his heart a yearning to possess one or 
two of these things. "They cannot do without 
Him," said the pilot; "they need him," and 
that was the very thing that kept him riding 
up the gulches and piercing down into the 
canyons. 

Now it is exceedingly important also after 
we have got that sense of possession in our 
hearts and we are approaching our man that 
we should know that we have the right at- 
mosphere about ourselves. I will say that 
perhaps one of the most important things in 
making the approach is that there should be in 
us every phase and form of life that we should 
respect. It was the first thing that gave the 
pilot entrance to the shacks and the hearts of 
the men of the foothills that he felt toward 
them a real respect. He respected them. 
These men that were accustomed to receive 
from the missionary or the minister or good 
man chiefly rebuke and criticism and warning 
were thrown off their guard, for this new man 
came with a real and profound respect for them. 
And my dear friends, I believe that many of 
us lose our grip before we get on to the grip. 
Many of us lose our battle before we fight it. 
Many of us lose our man before we touch him, 
because of a wrong approach. I suppose there 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 183 

is nothing the man of the world, the man of 
business ability, the man who does things, so 
unconsciously resents as the apparent feeling 
of cocksureness and betterness in the man who 
is approaching him — the lack of respect for 
the man. You say it is very hard for us to 
respect some men ; very hard to respect the man 
of the world with his sins and his vices. It is 
hard, perhaps. This may help us in such an 
emergency as that. It may help us to remem- 
ber that for this man with all his vices upon 
him, with all the weaknesses in his character, 
for this man Almighty God himself had re- 
spect. It may help us to remember that fine 
trait of the character of the Great Pilot; that 
is, his fine courtesy toward men. Did you ever 
see a word, did you ever know of a deed that 
he performed in which there was any hint of 
the patronizing spirit? Did he ever approach 
men from a superior level? No. The first 
that men knew about Christ was that he was 
side by side, shoulder to shoulder with them 
there as we heard the other night in another 
connection. 

Unless we can respect a man, we cannot be 
interested in him, and the first approach that 
we make toward any man to help him is a pro- 
found and real regard for his intrinsic worth, 
his worth as he estimates himself; because, re- 
member he is all he has got and he is worthy 
as he is estimated by God, for God thinks of 
him as worthy. God help that we have this 



184 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

respect, for then I believe we are prepared to 
move on. 

I would say that among many other things 
I would select this, perhaps, as the next quali- 
fication : A real sympathy with the man. I am 
speaking commonplaces now I know, brethren, 
and yet they are the great things ; the common 
things are the great things in the world about 
us and in the world within us. Now sympathy 
is a form of love. Eespect is love making its 
approach, and sympathy is love working from 
the level of a man. No man can help his 
brother until he feels to a certain extent his 
brother's feelings. Will you differentiate 
here? Not because it is a hard intellectual 
process, but because it is a difficult practical 
process, we differentiate sympathy from pity. 
Strong men reject your pity, but no man is so 
strong but he welcomes your sympathy. Sym- 
pathy is feeling the same feelings as the man 
himself. For instance, the man is a worker. 
Can you in any sense make his work real to 
you? I remember right here that the first ex- 
perience of being able to touch men came to me 
as I emerged one day from the bowels of the 
earth ; from a mine. I went down in the basket, 
down below, one stratum after another, until I 
got down to the levels where the men were 
working. And after going up into the drift 
and watching them taking out the coal, plodding 
wearily and painfully up and down those under- 
ground passages, I came out to the air again, 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 185 

and I understood for the first time why miners 
get drunk. I never knew it before, and if I had 
not gone down there I never would have discov- 
ered why a miner gets drunk. Do you know 
why a miner gets drunk? I will tell you why. 
It is first the air and light getting into his brain 
that makes him wild, and he must do something 
that makes his blood jump. It is the terrific re- 
action from the underground life. I do not be- 
lieve any man who stays above ground can help 
the miners. I believe you have got to go down 
and see them on the job. And if you can take 
a pick and wield it, do so. Then you will know 
something of the way to get close to the man's 
life and heart, his work, his feeling, and every- 
thing about him. 

Xow I know I am approaching a difficult and 
rather delicate subject here, and especially 
in this convention hall. I was delighted to 
hear from this platform the other day a 
very strong representation of the gospel of the 
good time. And I am very glad to notice this, 
too: The church of Christ, I believe, is throw- 
ing aside as an outworn theory and practice 
the bait theory. I think we are giving up the 
idea that we must throw out baits for men to 
come into the church. At the same time I want 
to say here that if we are going to do suc- 
cessful and valuable work in the piloting of 
men we must get down beside them in their 
fun. Of course we are not going to take fun 
that costs too much. We are not for a mo- 



186 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

ment going to have anything to do with fun 
that costs a loss of the finer sensibilities or any 
sense of honor or any feeling of manhood. 
Now with these we have nothing to do. But I 
believe, brethren, it is a good thing for us to 
feel that the Christian man has a right to do 
everything in this world that is clean. 

I wouldn't apologize for going with the men 
out to the baseball diamond, and I wouldn't 
apologize for going with the men to their games. 
I think I would be freely and heartily with 
them — take part with them. You may say it 
is a kind of a bait to go out on the diamond 
when you don't play and pretend to be inter- 
ested. It is utterly despicable and futile. 
They see through it. But to be downright in- 
terested in the things the men like to do in their 
fun is all right, and we should go with them 
wherever the fun is clean. That is really worth 
while. It is a type of sympathy that puts you 
side by side with the men you are trying to 
show the way. I wish we had not surrendered, 
as we have surrendered, to the saloon so many 
of these things in the way of games and sports 
that are perfectly clean and perfectly good. I 
wish we could offer these things to the enemy 
and let them go side by side with the men we 
want to reach. Why shouldn't we? I am 
looking for the day when the church will com- 
mand and press into service all the clean 
things. I am looking for the day when not only 
games and literature and art and music will be 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 18 < 

pressed into the service of the church, but I 
will go so far as to say that I hope nobody 
will fall down; that I am waiting for the day 
when the church will take hold of the dramatic 
stage and impress it into Christian service. I 
am surprised there are so many who approve 
of that. I thought perhaps I was going a little 
too far and would have to take it back. "We 
don't take things back from this platform. 

I want to say this in regard to the stage : As 
it is, we must continue to be hopeless. I have 
no hope in the stage as it is as a regenerating 
force or even as a legitimate amusement. But 
I want to say that I would like to know any 
good reason why the Christian Church should 
not subsidize and train men to portray the 
great ideals of truth which we wish men to 
struggle and fight for any more than we should 
for the pulpit. Is it not the same thing? But 
let us not go into that. It is some time off. 
But I believe that some day our children will 
mention professors in colleges training men to 
put before the multitudes the great and glori- 
ous truths of our experience in action as they 
do now in thought and teaching. At any rate, 
let us claim this in the church — the right to 
take everything clean there is and impress it 
into service, and for the main purpose of get- 
ting into sympathy with men. If you get into 
sympathy with men in other lines, and stop 
short of the things he loves to do you will stop 
at the point where you are most likely to lose 



188 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

him. Sympathy with him is more than that, 
however. We want to be able to feel his feel- 
ings when he gets down to his sins. When he 
gets down to his sins ! We never want to be so 
close to him as when he is sinning. We want to 
understand and manage the processes of his 
sin. We want to understand all those vagaries 
of his heart that result in sinning. You know, 
brethren, very much better than I do, perhaps, 
that sin is simply the resultant of these things : 
Of environment, of opportunity, and passion. 
How many of us would be clean, how many of 
us would keep clean if always and everywhere 
we could sin without fear, danger, or hurt? Is 
it not true that God keeps us by the perils of 
sin. And so remembering that this man is in 
sin because of a sudden temptation, or because 
of a certain environment, or because of a cer- 
tain history behind him, remember these things 
and facing the great fact about him that he is 
a sinner, show him that he cannot escape. Get 
down beside him and begin to work out with 
him the problem of his sin. We must not stand 
on some eminence and say, "Coine up out of 
there.' ' We must not say, "Here, come up into 
this place.' ' And we must remember that 
when He came to save us from sin, 

"He came and felt the sinner's shame, and felt 
the sinner's pain." 

The less the distance the less humiliation sin 
produces. He moved to the side of his brother, 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 189 

to the side of his sin, and by looking at it from 
the inside discovered how he might work out a 
way of escape. And if you are going to show 
your man the way out of sin you must know 
what his sin is and how he came to be a sinner. 
After all, that is the big business. The big 
business of this Brotherhood is to get into grips 
with sin. It is not the furnishing of intellect- 
ual stimulus; it is not providing additional en- 
joyment. It is not these things, but it is to get 
into grips with sin and to get him out of his 
sin. 

Now let me say in conclusion just one thing 
more. After we have got all these things I 
have spoken about and many others, what is 
the next thing? There is only one thing left, 
and that is, Go after your man. Go after your 
man. Go and get him. Grip him. In some 
way get some hook into him and stay with it. 
Go for it. What does that mean? It means 
that back of your plan and method, back of 
your splendid machinery and organization, 
there must come the great pulsing passion to 
help men: the great frenzy, the great madness 
that seized upon the apostle Paul, the great mad- 
ness that thrust him out into his world work 
of saving men from sin, of bringing them, 
leading them, dragging them, to the Christ. 
When the pilot was reading one night to Bill 
and the group about him, he seemed to be seri- 
ous, this Bill, whom they all learned to love so 
much, and they came across this word: "Breth- 



190 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

ren, I could wish myself accursed from Christ 
for my brethrens' sake." "What does it 
mean?" said the pilot. They thought a mo- 
ment, one tried and another tried and then Bill 
said this: "Why, it means — it means he'd go 
to hell for 'em." We must not be shocked. 
That is the exact meaning of the word. "I 
could wish myself accursed from Christ for my 
brethren." Bill put it, "He'd go to hell for 
'em." Isn't that correct? The passion that 
sends a man to hell for men; the passion that 
sends a man to any kind of death for men — that 
is the saving passion; that is the final passion 
in the pilot's heart. 

I remember that when God himself came to 
attract men to him and lead men to him he 
abandoned heaven. He abandoned heaven. 
He threw off life. He emptied himself of the 
things that made life for God and came to us 
here a poverty stricken man. The apostle 
Paul caught the spirit and he was willing, 
brethren, that even he himself would go to 
save men. Brethren, when you do ask a man 
to come with you, what are you going to prom- 
ise him? When you go to a sane and hearty 
and solid-minded man and ask him to come 
with you, what are you going to offer him? 
Are you going to offer him heaven? I 
wouldn't, not at first. 

One day in a western town some men were 
playing a game in a saloon. There were about 
thirteen of them there. A man tried to break 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 191 

up the game and came in with one story after 
another to drag these men off from the table. 
They all failed. At last he sent a man in with 
these words, "Boys, there is a fight out here," 
and they all dropped and ran. The most in- 
teresting thing in the world to a man with blood 
in his veins is a fight. Don't say to the man, 
"Come in and have a social time." Don't say 
to him, "Come in and be a little safer; come in 
and be a little better." Say this to him, 
"There is a fight going on; come on!" And 
you will come out very much wiser with the 
heat of battle upon you, and send that into a 
man's heart, saying, "Come and fight." The 
old cry of the Son of God : ' ' Come and suffer. 
Come and take up the cross" — that reaches the 
best into the heart of humanity. Come and fight ! 
Come and suffer ! Come and take up the cross ! 
That will summon to your side men, the men 
you want to get, and the men that, getting, will 
make it worth while for vou to lead them. 



XIV 

THE EVANGELIZATION OF OUR 
COUNTRYMEN 

BY J. WILBUR CHAPMAN, D.D. 

Mr. Chairman, were I simply speaking as an 
individual, I certainly would count it a rare 
privilege to stop in the midst of any work to 
say a word which might prove in any sense 
helpful to so great and so representative a 
gathering of men of our church as this. But 
inasmuch as I am not this afternoon simply to 
speak as an individual, but as representing one 
of the other great movements of the church, I 
consider myself especially fortunate in having 
this great honor placed upon me. I do not at 
all take it as individual, but I do take it, with 
the other members of the Evangelistic Com- 
mittee, as an honor conferred upon the Gen- 
eral Assembly Committee on Evangelistic 
Work. 

Since coming into the city I have been unable 
to get out of my mind a text which you will 
find in Esther: "Who knoweth whether thou 
art come to the kingdom for such a time 
as this?" It would seem to me as if every 

192 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 193 

Presbyterian ought to stop this afternoon and 
think of that Scripture: "Who knoweth 
whether thou art come to the kingdom for such 
a time as this?" 

These are great days in which we are living, 
days in which men are amassing great fortunes, 
days for the exhibition of great genius, and 
when the history of the present day is written 
it will be found that the greatest fortunes the 
world has ever known have been amassed in 
this generation. The most wonderful mani- 
festations of genius have been exhibited in this 
generation. But I am equally sure when the 
history of the present day is written, it will be 
said that this has been the day of the mightiest 
movement in the history not only of our own 
beloved church, but the entire church of Christ. 

It is unnecessary that I should say after 
these days and weeks and months of service 
that I am an optimist concerning the future of 
the church. If I had ever been pessimistic I 
should be obliged to change my pessimism for 
optimism to-day. This is, indeed, the most sig- 
nificant movement, I believe, in the church's his- 
tory. 

Churches of the Calvinistic faith have always 
influenced the thought of the world, but we 
have come now to be part of a church which 
really is to be called a church for the times; 
or, to change the expression, it is an emergency 
church. When the tide of evangelism was re- 
ceding, when additions to the church were pain- 

13 



194 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

fully small, when interest in the claims of 
Christ seemed to be so little felt in the church, 
our beloved church was keen to scent the dan- 
ger, a great committee was appointed, and the 
tide was changed. Pastors were encouraged, 
the evangelist was given his proper place and 
the whole Christian world rejoiced that one of 
our distinguished laymen, not only with his 
money, but with a consecration of himself made 
it possible for our beloved church to become at 
least one of the mightiest forces of evangelism 
in the church's history. When the chasm be- 
tween capital and labor seemed to be widening 
and deepening so that in a great labor conven- 
tion when the name of Christ was mentioned 
it was cheered, but when the church was men- 
tioned it was hissed, the same great church 
through its Board of Home Missions not only 
recognized the danger but sought the cure, and 
that man who knew the labor problems of to-day 
and knew the church of Jesus Christ, the man 
who speaks to you and always thrills us, 
Charles Stelzle, was called into commission, 
and I believe is doing more than any other man 
of his generation to ally the laboring world with 
the Christian world and show them that our 
church is in sympathy with the laboring men 
to-day; and the chasm is being bridged. For 
this we shall forever praise God. 

Then we come to a time of organization. 
Men were forming themselves into clubs, lodges 
and trusts, and the same great church was keen 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 195 

to scent the fact, and I do not know who first 
had the conception, possibly history will tell us 
that, but I do know that there must have been 
born of man some one man who caught the main 
thought of this unification of the church, until 
to-day we are met in the most significant con- 
vention in the church's history, and there is 
being launched to-day a movement that shall 
stir our church and shall mean the winning of 
a multitude of men to Jesus Christ. For let us 
remember that if the men of our country are 
to be won they are to be won through the men 
already in the church of Christ. This is the 
great day, and "who knoweth," my brethren, 
"whether thou art come to the kingdom for 
such a time as this?" 

When the English soldiers were besieged in 
Lucknow and were waiting for reinforcements, 
that did not appear, and must soon surrender, 
a young Scotch girl put her ear to the ground 
and listened, then sprang to her feet with face 
shining and hair streaming, and called out: "I 
hear them coming! I hear them coming!" and 
every soldier was nerved for the conflict. I 
put my ear down to-day and I hear them com- 
ing, coming to the help of the Lord against the 
mighty ; our great Presbyterian force of laymen 
coming into the kingdom in almost countless 
numbers, men and boys, who to-day may be in- 
different to the claims of Christ. "We are at 
the dawning of one of the best days the church 
of Jesus Christ has ever known. 



196 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

What will the movement mean ? It will mean 
that every single church in the land will have a 
working force, a trained force, a consecrated 
force. What is the hope of the church to-day? 
The hope of the church is evangelism. What 
is evangelism? Evangelism is the spiritualiz- 
ing of the existing agencies of the church. It 
is the intensifying of the ordinary service. 
Evangelism is the consecration of the individ- 
ual member of the church. I make no plea to- 
day for professional evangelism, although in 
the providence of God I must so class myself, 
although I am no more professional to-day than 
when I was the pastor of a church, but I do 
dare to say after these years of service and 
study that the hope of the church is not in pro- 
fessional evangelism. The professional evan- 
gelist is an emergency man. The hope of the 
church is in pastoral evangelism. It is the 
ideal of the church. But it can never be pos- 
sible till we have in each individual church a 
number of men who will second the minister 
by praying God's blessing upon him, and then 
seek to carry out the principles enunciated in 
his appeal. I know as many ministers as any 
other minister in the church, and I marvel that 
they can preach as well as they do. The aver- 
age minister must use fifteen minutes of his 
sermon to create a spiritual atmosphere. Men 
come from the office, from the newspaper, from 
secular business. It is not the easiest thing in 
the world to preach, or it is the most difficult 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 197 

thing in the world to preach, and it depends 
largely on the people in the pews. Mr. Wana- 
maker came back from England one day and 
told me he had learned the secret of Spurgeon's 
power. He said he never entered the pulpit 
that the deacons did not gather round him to 
pray, that a thousand people did not bow their 
heads in prayer. I said, "Why couldn't you 
do that in this city?" and for three blessed 
years in Bethany I never entered the pulpit 
that the twenty-four leaders did not pray with 
me, sit on the platform with me, and weep when 
they saw men come to Christ. Again and 
again, Mr. Wanamaker patted me on the shoul- 
der as I preached. For five blessed years in 
New York I never entered service in the morn- 
ing or stood in the pulpit in the evening or at 
prayer meeting service on Wednesday night 
that my fourteen elders did not meet with me, 
frequently with their arms about me, and when 
I arose to speak men were ready without a ser- 
mon to give heed to the message of salvation. 

What will the Brotherhood do? I will tell 
you what it will do. It will make it possible 
for ministers to become evangelistic, to preach 
his sermon and gather in his results. This is 
a great day for our beloved church. 

In the second place, the Brotherhood will 
mean another thing. It will bring together the 
employer and the employee ; it will break down 
the barriers between the rich and the poor. 
We will learn the lesson that we are all breth- 



198 



THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 



ren together in the church. I will tell you the 
difficulty to-day in the laboring world. It is 
not the fact that sometimes the hours are long 
and the pay is poor. Laboring men to-day are 
keen intellectually. They know the market 
fluctuations ; but I will tell you where the diffi- 
culty is. There are sometimes men — I think 
the number is growing fewer — who are high in 
the synagogue who are not considerate of the 
poor six days of the week. Tolstoi was stand- 
ing on the corner of a street when a beggar 
passed and said, "Give me a penny, " in the 
Russian. Tolstoi looked at him and said, "I 
would, my brother, but I have no money. ' ' The 
beggar went on his way with a smile. As he 
went away one of his companions in misery 
said, "You are smiling, but you got nothing.' ' 
"Oh," said he, with face shining and lips 
trembling, "he called me brother." And I de- 
sire to say that the day is dawning in the 
church more truly than ever when the high, the 
wise and those of lower degree will feel they 
can march as one army or stand as one Broth- 
erhood. When that is true a revival of the best 
sort is upon us. This is the day. 

Third. This Brotherhood is going to solve the 
financial problems of the church. I doubt not 
that that is true. Every pastor here will feel 
his burden is greatly lightened. For many of 
us have to serve the tables when we ought to be 
preaching the gospel. They will say to the 
Board, "All hail the Brotherhood." But why 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 199 

will it solve the financial problems? I will tell 
you. The men of the church will learn the les- 
son of real consecration. And when conse- 
crated it is easier to give. That is consecra- 
tion. I used to have an idea that consecration 
was giving God something, but that is not so. 
For if I am a Christian everything I have is 
God's; my time, my money, my strength is his. 
That is consecration. It is taking your hands 
off and letting God have his own. 

One of the rich men of my charge who was 
going to be out of the country for a while said : 
"I want you to dispense my charity. All you 
have to do is to listen to the stories of the peo- 
ple and send a slip of paper down, and who- 
ever has the slip of paper will get the money." 
I don't think I ever passed such a happy month 
in my life. It is fine to give away other peo- 
ple's money. 

Whenever the Presbyterian Brotherhood 
comes to the place that our time, our money, 
our strength, our genius, are His we have 
reached the place where he can use us, "Yea 
for the best ye have, and that is victory. ' ' 

One of our evangelists was preaching out in 
the Indian country. He made an impassioned 
appeal for contributions to the cause of Christ. 
He said: "Give up the best you have. We 
are now going to pass the baskets." 
They passed the baskets through the con- 
gregation and the baskets came back and 
when the minister was receiving the bas- 



200 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

ket collection with prayer an Indian with 
his wife arose from the rear of the build- 
ing and walked to the front. They had between 
them a little boy. He was an elder in our 
church in the Indian country. He picked up 
the little boy in his arms and said through an 
interpreter to the evangelist: "Minister, you 
asked us for the very best we had. We have 
no money, but the best we have in this wojld is 
this boy of ours." And then he said with a 
smile: "You see we could not put him in the 
basket and so we thought we would just bring 
him up here. If you want to take him to the 
north, take him. If he would come to preach 
the gospel we would forever be grateful. Take 
him." And then leaving the boy at the altar 
he threw his arms around the neck of his wife 
and sobbed. But every day should consecrate 
men to our beloved church when we would keep 
back nothing, your boy and mine, your girl and 
mine, your money and mine, all because they 
are His, his. That means the winning of them 
to Christ. God hasten the day ! 

This Brotherhood is going to mean the estab- 
lishment of the pastor in his rightful position. 
The present day evangelistic movement stands 
for the pastoral office. If I thought the move- 
ment meant in any way the minimizing of the 
influence of the pastor I would leave it to-mor- 
row. There would be no preaching so far as I 
am concerned in Bochester. The present day 
movement is all toward the exalting of the pas- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 201 

toral office. That is right. There has never 
been such a day for preaching as this. Never. 
Never. If you are a young minister and have 
been preaching for a year I notify you that I 
would give my right hand if I could go back 
and begin the ministry over again. 

The other day in St. Louis a man gave up his 
ministry. He said the influence of the modern 
fashionable church is wholly to subserve the 
interests of the rich and it is impossible for a 
preacher to preach his convictions because of 
the money power. That is why he quit the min- 
istry. The Star in this city answered it in an 
editorial thus: "Preachers are not called to 
preach their convictions as much as they are to 
preach the gospel. Few parishioners, rich or 
poor, have ever instigated heresy prosecutions 
against their pastor for preaching ' Jesus 
Christ and him crucified.' Discontent arises 
where the pulpit is made the vehicle of various 
side issues in which its occupant is momentarily 
interested. He who turns from the plain and 
simple task of reaching the unregenerate heart 
of man by convicting it of sin and drawing it 
toward a better life to inveigh against specific 
theories or classes has exchanged the kernel of 
the ministry for its husks. The province of the 
pulpit is not to wage war on the rich or poor, 
the Republicans or the Democrats, autonomy or 
anarchy, science or art, high society or the 
slums, but to bring the message of the gospel 
to the universal heart." And the editor says, 



202 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

"When this is done the rich men of the cnurch 
and the poor men of the church will bid us a 
modest, All hail!" Listen! That is a libel 
against the right to say that the minister who 
has honest convictions cannot preach them. 
The only minister that has a hold to-day is the 
fearless minister. 

I made it a rale when I was a pastor about 
once a month to tell the people I was not afraid 
of them, and I always had a good time. Part 
of the time I was almost afraid of them, but 
I never let them know it. Whenever a minister 
loses his courage his battle is lost. This is a 
great day for preachers. One of my friends 
described one of the last of the old preachers in 
these words : ' ' He could dive deeper, stay down 
longer, and come up drier than anybody he had 
ever heard." Of course it is not much of a 
day for that sort of a preacher. 

But the lesson of the Presbyterian Brother- 
hood will stand for this. I trembled when I 
thought you wanted to break up the Committee 
of Twenty-one, for I know all the men but one. 
They will give character to the movement. I sat 
beside one of the members, who said, as the 
tears glistened in his eyes, "This will become 
the mightiest evangelistic force in the history 
of the world." Hear me, men! The Presby- 
terian Brotherhood is going to mean easy work 
for the preacher when he wants to preach 
Christ. Do you wonder, then, when I say I am 
delighted to have the privilege in behalf of the 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 203 

evangelistic committee to say this word more 
as I come to the close of my remarks? This is 
our commission : "Go ye into all the world, and 
preach the gospel to every creature." 
Evangelistics is the outgrowth of the church; 
it is the outgrowth of evangelism. We are 
missing the method. 

We were in Pittsburgh a short time ago and 
the president of the Diamond National Bank 
heard two of the young men of the bank using 
profane language. He rang a bell and said, 
"Send those gentlemen in." He said to them: 
1 ' Gentlemen, I am a Christian man and if there 
is any profanity in this bank I will use it. In- 
asmuch as I don't swear, there will be none 
used. No man can be a man, no man can be a 
gentleman, who swears." One said he was a 
Princeton man and the other a Harvard man. 
One lived in a hotel and the other in the East 
End in a boarding house. With that all their 
spirit of braggadocio was gone. One's lips be- 
gan to tremble and the other's eyes moistened. 
The president said: "I didn't call you in to 
make you cry, but, boys, the best thing in the 
world for you to do would be to turn to Christ. 
Good morning." And they were gone. The 
next morning there was a rap at the bank presi- 
dent 's door and when it was opened there were 
the two young men, the one to say to him, "Mr. 
Price, I took down my mother's Bible last 
night," and the other to say, "I dropped on 
my knees and graved for the first time in a 



204 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

year." In Doctor Young's church I saw those 
two bank clerks stand on their feet to take 
Christ. The Presbyterian men of to-day, on 
fire with the passion to save souls, could save a 
multitude in a year. That is what the move- 
ment means. 

Just a year ago I went up to have the priv- 
ilege of calling on the Governor of Minnesota. 
I saw the Lieutenant Governor talking with 
him. The Governor said: "I heard you preach 
last night and I didn't believe what you said 
about asking people to come to Christ. I don't 
believe in that. What do you think of a man 
coming down into this hotbed of politics and 
asking a man to come to Christ?" I said: 
"Governor, I never told people to do that. I 
have just been introduced by the most distin- 
guished Presbyterian in St. Paul and one of 
the most distinguished politicians. What if he 
should come into your office and say, 'I am a 
Christian; not as good as I could wish, but I 
love Christ. I love you and I would give my 
right hand if I could lead you to my Saviour ? ' " 
I said, "What would you say to him?" His 
lip was trembling and his eye moistened. He 
said, "I think I should say, i Thank you.' " 
You know there are ten thousand men to-day 
with aching hearts waiting for some one to 
speak, and this Presbyterian Brotherhood on 
fire is going out to shake the church. God 
grant it! 

The worker. It is absolutely impossible for 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 205 

you and rae to do this work unless our motives 
and lives are right. I read in the paper the 
other day that the wizard Burbank had at last 
made an apple sweet on one side and sour on 
the other. The Eecord-Herald said, "That is 
company manners and home manners in the 
same person." You see? Listen, men! Your 
public life and mine, your private life and mine, 
must run together, and if we are not right God 
won't use us. 

The last thing, — the work. Never was there 
such a call as to-day. Temptations were never 
so insidious. Sin was never so mighty. I am 
going to make a proposition or statement that 
you'll not believe, some of you. The easiest 
person in all this world to win to Christ is not 
a boy; the easiest person in all this world to 
win to Christ is not a girl ; the easiest person in 
all this world to win to Christ is not a woman. 
The easiest person to win to Christ is a man! 
A man! And that is our work. That is our 
work. 

May I give you this illustration as I sit down? 
You never can win men to Christ until you make 
them think, or stir their memory. Two or three 
years ago I was in Atlanta, Georgia, walking 
with ex-Governor Northern He said, "Do you 
know that statute?" I said, "I think not." 
He said, "Look again." And I looked and I 
saw down at the bottom of it, "Henry W. 
Grady." He said, "That was our Henry." 
When he went to New York he thrilled every- 



206 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

body and was crowned as the peerless orator of 
his time. 

Henry Grady left one time and they could 
not find him. He left on Thursday and came 
back on Tuesday. Nobody knew where he was. 
He had gone out to the home of his mother in the 
country, and when he crossed the threshold he 
said to his mother: "Your son has been losing 
his old ideals and he has come back to stay, 
not as a big man, but as a boy. Now treat him 
as a boy." And his mother, keen to see the 
necessity, treated him as a boy. She gave him 
the food he always loved as a boy, and sat be- 
side him while he ate it. When evening came 
she rocked him by the fireside and sang the old 
lullaby. When the time came for this match- 
less orator to go to bed he would get down on 
his knees, his mother beside him, and he would 
say the simple prayer, "Now I lay me down to 
sleep;" when she put him into bed she would 
bend over him and with that peculiar touch of 
the mother's hand — thirty-five years ago in this 
state my mother went home, and I can feel the 
touch of my mother's hand to this day — he 
would drop to sleep. When he came back to 
Atlanta he came with his face all shining. He 
had his vision. All that the men of to-day need 
is a stirring up of the memory. That is your 
work 



XV 

THE MEN OF OUR CHURCH AND THEIR 
MINISTER 

BY J. ROSS STEVENSON, D. D. 

I suppose that there was no intention on the 
part of the Programme Committee to suggest 
by my topic, two classes of human beings who 
are mutually exclusive — men and ministers. 
You may have heard of this epitaph for a cow- 
boy preacher: "A parson, but a man." If the 
laymen here present were to speak upon my 
subject, they would surely insist that the min- 
ister should be a man four square, right side 
up, genuine through and through, and who 
stands in his proper place. They would also 
demand of him that he be a minister in reality, 
a true representative of Him who came not to 
be ministered unto, but to minister, and who 
regards his church not as a nest to lie in, but 
as a vineyard to labor in. He might, in turn, 
demand that his male parishioners also be men 
seven days in the week, in the church, and in 
the office; at prayer meeting and at the club, 
and men who regard the church, not as a means 
for material advantage and eternal safety, but 

207 



208 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

as a base of supplies for Christian conquest. 
Such men in a church, the minister included, 
ought to keep pace with the good women. 

1. We are proud of the fact that we belong 
to a strong church, the great aim of which has 
always been to produce strong men and min- 
isters. That denomination which we have the 
honor to serve, has always been strong in her 
intellectual conceptions of truth; strong in her 
force of character ; strong in her spiritual life ; 
strong in her devotion to the Master. She has 
been for the most part, a working church, not 
existing for her own interests, but solely for 
the extension of Christ's kingdom, for as one 
of our Presbyterian fathers has put it, "The 
church is the kingdom of God at work in the 
world." Our church has always been, and is 
now, decidedly evangelistic in her aim, and her 
missionary purpose has been clearly defined. 
May we never forget that Assembly deliverance 
which should be emblazoned in letters of gold 
across the old blue banner of the covenant: 
"The Presbyterian Church is a missionary so- 
ciety, the object of which is to aid in the con- 
version of the world, and every member of this 
church is a member for life of said society, and 
bound to do all in his power for the accomplish- 
ment of this object. " 

It would be expected that a church with such 
a vision of service, with such strong, com- 
manding conceptions of truth and of obligation 
to her risen Lord, should produce men and min- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 209 

isters who find in Christian life and service, 
full scope for their loftiest aims and noblest 
endeavors. Our church has always stood for 
a well equipped and efficient ministry, and for 
the highest type of laymen, patterned after Him 
who is the realized ideal of humanity. To im- 
press this fact upon us, we need only recall 
such princes in our own Israel as the Hodges 
and Henry B. Smith in the professor's chair; 
as Albert Barnes, John Hall, and Howard 
Crosby in the pulpit; as Dr. Nevius and Dr. 
Good out on the mission field abroad; or Dr. 
Henry Kendall and Dr. Arthur Mitchell work- 
ing here at home; and such notable Christian 
laymen as Walter Lowrie, George H. Stuart, 
William E. Dodge, and Cyrus H. McCormick, 
not to mention the living. With such an illus- 
trious heritage in a church which bears' an hon- 
ored name, it is our privilege to serve as broth- 
ers. 

2. Should not the general theme of this con- 
vention, Brotherhood, define the relation in 
which the men of the church should stand to 
their minister? It is evident from the action 
taken this afternoon that this Presbyterian 
Brotherhood is to be strictly under lay direc- 
tion, and preserved from ministerial contact. 
It is highly commendable when men recognize 
their responsibility, and desire to carry their 
own burdens, and no one should question their 
ability to take care of their own affairs. And 
yet permit me to say that it would be most un- 

34 



210 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

fortunate if such a sharp distinction should be 
drawn between Christian men and ministers 
that the latter should be left out of the sweep 
of this great Brotherhood. I felt not only hon- 
ored by the invitation to come to this conven- 
tion, but believed that it was such a great op- 
portunity that although it seemed impossible 
for me to get away from my own pastoral work, 
I must come at any sacrifice. And I somehow 
imagined that as a minister in a convention of 
this kind, I would be desperately lonely, but I 
wish to say in all frankness, that I have never 
been in a convention where I have seen so many 
ministers trying to pass themselves off for 
laymen, or where I have seen so many men who 
seemed eager to preach. This is encouraging. 
It seems almost impossible to keep them apart. 
It was an unfortunate movement in the ancient 
church which came to divide Christian brothers 
into two distinct classes, clergy and laity, a dis- 
tinction for which there is no scriptural war- 
rant, and which delegated Christian service to 
a priestly class, and excused laymen from the 
active work of the church. As Presbyterians, 
we believe not only in the parity of the min- 
istry, putting no one above another in rank or 
privilege, but we believe in the parity of all 
Christians; the priesthood of believers which 
makes them all one in Christ, members of the 
same family, and engaged in a common work. 
This is certainly a conception which needs to be 
emphasized in the individual church, namely, 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 211 

that all the men are brothers, and that the min- 
ister is one of them, even though he be a weak 
brother, and I earnestly hope that one great 
result of this movement will be not only to 
bring the Presbyterian laymen close together 
as members one of another, brothers of a com- 
mon life, but to bring the men and their min- 
ister into warm, personal, vital touch with each 
other, as brethren indeed. The men and their 
minister have not always seen eye to eye nor 
worked side by side, and it has too often been 
the preacher's fault. Dr. John Hall used to 
tell the story of a Scotchman who was asked 
how he liked the new minister. "Very weel," 
he replied, "but there is this I must say about 
him: For six days in the week he is invisible, 
and then on Sunday, he is inexplicable." The 
fault of some of our laymen is just the reverse : 
for six days, they are inexplicable, and on the 
Sabbath, they are invisible. The only thing 
that can bring them together, is a common 
service for their fellowmen, in obedience to 
their one Master's command. 

Consider the service in which the men and 
their minister must mutually engage. Be it 
far from me to put on patriarchal airs, and 
assume to advise this Brotherhood, but coming 
as the representative of one of the oldest Men's 
Societies in our church, permit me to give a 
word of testimony. I have in my hand, a copy 
of the constitution of the Men's Society of the 
Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, which con- 



212 



THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 



stitution was prepared by the Eev. James W. 
Alexander, D. D., in the year 1845. The motto 
of this society is, and always has been: "Let 
brotherly love continue. " Yon may be inter- 
ested in the purpose of this Society as it was 
defined by Dr. Alexander in his own inimitable 
style : 

"The object of this society shall be to pro- 
mote Christian acquaintance and friendship ; to 
render mutual aid; to cultivate the knowledge 
of revelation, by studying it in common; to 
promote personal grace, by conference, prayer, 
and praise ; to cherish benevolent affections, by 
united contributions to such objects as are con- 
nected with the spread of the gospel, and to 
cooperate with the various boards of the 
church and its missionary and benevolent so- 
cieties in promoting the growth of our church 
work ; and in order to attain these ends, it shall 
be the particular aim of the association to seek 
out and draw under its influence, such young 
men as, from recent arrival in the city, or from 
other causes, may be ready to prize the ap- 
proach of Christian kindness." 

I mention this not to exploit this particular 
society or its work, although it has had a won- 
derful history, and has on its roll, the names of 
some of the most prominent laymen of the Pres- 
byterian Church; but I wish to emphasize two 
points: First, that the success of this society 
has always depended upon the interest of the 
minister in it; and secondly, its success has also 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 213 

depended on the definite objects it had in view, 
and the losing sight of these, has invariably 
resulted in a waning of interest. This old so- 
ciety suggests to us certain lines of work in 
which the men and their minister must be most 
closely identified. Think of the men outside 
the church who need to be brought to Christ 
and under the influences of the church, and to 
do it will require the combined efforts of 
preacher and people. Do we realize that of the 
fourteen million, two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand men in our country between the ages of 
sixteen and thirty-five, nine million, fifty-nine 
thousand, are outside the church? And what is 
worse, a large proportion of these are leading 
immoral lives, and are under influences which 
make for their temporal and eternal ru : n. 
Mere preaching will never convert these men; 
the earnest effort of a large company of per- 
sonal workers will not be sufficient to bring 
them all to Christ. Personal influence must be 
exerted by all the men of the church if this 
great body of unsaved men is to be brought to 
a knowledge of Christ. 

Last summer I heard Dr. Bosworth of Ober- 
lin speak of the present crisis and the men it 
calls for, and he went on to say in substance : 

1 ' The call to-day is for honest men who do not 
lead the double life, one life at home, and in 
respectable society, and another in places which 
they visit in secret; for business men who, in 
the stress of the tremendous temptations which 



214 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

is upon business men to-day, will stand for that 
which they believe to be honest. Honest law- 
yers are called for who will stand for the en- 
forcement and not the evasion of law, and who 
will never find satisfaction in defeating justice. 
Ministers are called for who will preach the 
gospel sincerely, who will preach what they be- 
lieve to be primary truths, in spite of the in- 
tolerant opposition of radicalism ; men who will 
THINK sincerely, who will not be kept from 
thinking upon certain subjects by the fear that 
they might reach conclusions that would be 
costly to express: ministers who in the pulpit 
will not use phraseology that exceeds personal 
experience. Journalists are called for who 
cannot be hired to advocate a cause they do not 
believe in. The call is for men everywhere, 
each one of whom will draw the thing as he sees 
it for the good of things as they are; men who 
have a great hunger and thirst after character, 
not after reputation, but after character, and 
men who are filled with an invincible good will 
to God, the heavenly Father, and an invincible 
good will to the men that are on every side. In 
a word, men like Jesus of Nazareth, full of 
grace and truth." 

Such are the men who are needed to win their 
fellows to Christ and the church. 

Dr. Alexander also believed that the men 
and their minister should work conjointly in 
cultivating the "knowledge of revelation." 

When Mr. Cooper, who has charge of the 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 215 

Bible Study Department of the International 
Committee of the Y. M. C. A., was a pastor, he 
organized a Bible class for systematic study. 
It began with about thirty members, and in the 
course of four years, the membership had 
grown to five hundred. Studying the Bible as 
they did, they were of necessity filled with the 
evangelistic spirit, and during those four years, 
no less than one hundred strong men with their 
families, were not only brought to Christ, but 
brought into the membership of the church. 
The pastor was the leader of this work, and 
he gives it as his own experience that such 
Bible study will only be successful in bringing 
men actually into the church, as the pastor takes 
an interest in the work, and is identified with 
it. 

Dr. Alexander also believed that the men of 
the church should cooperate with the minister 
in all the missionary enterprises of Christ's 
kingdom, and with this end in view, benevolent 
affection should be cherished. But no man has 
a benevolent affection for a cause of which he 
is entirely ignorant. The men cannot depend 
alone on what they hear from the pulpit to 
instruct them regarding the great missionary 
work of the church: There must be among 
them, as there is to-day among the men of our 
colleges, systematic study of missions. This 
may be done very conveniently in connection 
with Bible study, just as the two are joined 
together in many of our Sunday schools. But 



216 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

again, the interest of the men in work of this 
kind will depend upon the interest of the pas- 
tor. Our mission boards find it to be almost 
universally true that the minister is the index 
of the missionary interest of any church. 

In the service contemplated by this Brother- 
hood, the pastor must have some place and 
part, for we may lay it down as a general prop- 
osition, that the interest of the men of any 
church in a given object, is in direct proportion 
to the interest of the minister, and therefore 
one great purpose of this Brotherhood should 
be not only to enlist the men so that they will 
identify themselves with the minister's work, 
but to enlist the ministers for the men, so that 
they too may catch the vision, and fall in line 
with God's plan for their generation. 

"We are not divided; all one body we: 
One in hope and doctrine : one in charity. ' ' 

We are members together of the body of 
Christ, and are therefore indispensable to each 
other, for the foot cannot say of the hand, I 
have no need of thee; and if one member suf- 
fer, the whole body must suffer. Christ is the 
head of the church: he has the vision, and 
gives the command. And when he tells us to 
go and make disciples of all nations, it is for 
us to obey individually, and to obey unitedly. 

Let us therefore stand fast in one spirit, 
with one soul, striving for the faith of the 
gospel. 



XVI 

THE MEN OF OUR CHURCH AND THE 
LABOR INTERESTS 

BY THE KEV. CHAS. STELZLE. 

There are fully six times as many men in the 
labor unions of this country not touched by the 
churches as there are men in all the Presby- 
terian churches combined, and when we add the 
hosts of non-unionists not in the churches there 
opens out before this Brotherhood the greatest 
field for service in America. Some day the 
church will awake to the fact that the labor 
movement is the most significant movement of 
modern times, and when I speak of the labor 
movement I do not refer exclusively to the la- 
bor union. There are forces organized and 
unorganized which are comprised in this term. 
It includes the twenty-five million socialists of 
the world, nine million of whom have cast their 
ballots for socialist candidates; it includes 
eight million trades-unionists of every land; it 
includes workingmen that to-day control the 
British Parliament ; it includes the uprising in 
Russia, twenty thousand of whom have suf- 
fered death because of what they believe; it 

217 



218 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

includes the uprising in France, Italy, and Bel- 
gium, to say nothing about the social unrest 
that exists in our own country. It does not 
require a very wise mind, therefore, to say that 
this is the era of the common man, and when 
the hour strikes that shall proclaim the vic- 
tory of the common people, this is the question 
that will confront the church of Jesus Christ: 
Will they be inspired by a high religious ideal 
given them by the church of Jesus, or 
will they go on to even nobler and higher things 
though they have won all in spite of the church ? 
For win they will. No human power can pre- 
vent it, and no divine power will. 

This, then, is the labor movement which con- 
fronts this church, the church in this genera- 
tion. There is so much religion in the labor 
movement and so much of the social spirit in 
the church that some day it is going to be a 
question whether the church will capture the 
labor movement or whether the labor move- 
ment will capture the church. We hear a great 
deal to-day about the church saving the masses, 
and we need to talk about it and think about it 
and work about it! but some day the masses 
are going to help save the church. 

There are four striking facts in connection 
with this subject to which I will call your at- 
tention very briefly this afternoon. 

In the first place, the great mass of working- 
men honor Jesus Christ as their friend and 
their leader and master. They believe in his 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 219 

divinity. I sometimes think the individual 
workingman is about as orthodox as the aver- 
age preacher. It has been my privilege to 
address great masses of workinginen number- 
ing from one thousand to ten thousand and at 
almost every mention of the name of Jesus 
Christ there has come applause from almost 
every part of the hall. 

In the second place, the average workingman 
is religious even though his religion is not ex- 
pressed in the accepted orthodox manner. The 
people who used to hear Ingersoll were not 
composed of the artisan class. Some time since 
we conducted as many as three hundred shop 
meetings in Chicago in ten days, and the 
preachers said they had never been listened to 
with greater interest than during that shop 
campaign. 

About a year and a half ago I began to write 
a series of syndicate articles for three hun- 
dred labor papers in the country in which I 
spoke to practically every trades-unionist in 
this country, getting an audience of ten million 
people. When I first began to write the arti- 
cles I left off the title, ' Reverend' because I 
thought they might object to it, and to my sur- 
prise every labor editor tacked it on and nearly 
every one gave me the degree of D.D. 

In the third place, the labor question is a re- 
ligious and moral question. History has 
prophesied it; everything indicates it. In the 
end there will be not one answer to the social 



220 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

question, but many; but they will all agree in 
this: All of them will be religious. The 
workingmen are more responsible, more able 
in this day than they have been at any other 
time during the history of the labor movement. 
I cannot stop to tell you about the results of 
the appeals of our pastors on labor Sunday 
when practically every minister preached to 
workingmen, and when more workingmen at- 
tended church than had been attending for 
many a year. 

A dozen years ago when I was a machinist in 
New York City I read an Associated Press dis- 
patch which said that the American Federation 
of Labor had declared that no minister of the 
gospel should be permitted to attend any meet- 
ing. I do not know whether it was true or not, 
but I decided when I read the dispatch if God 
ever gave me the opportunity I would break 
down that prejudice that existed among the 
workingmen of this country. Last year I re- 
ceived a request from the secretary of the same 
organization to go to Pittsburgh to the twenty- 
fifth annual meeting to address for a half hour 
the four hundred delegates who represented a 
half a million men; and when I got through 
they passed a resolution endorsing our depart- 
ment and instructing their organization to 
cooperate with the ministers. The other day 
at Minneapolis from where I have just come I 
was received by the same convention as a fra- 
ternal delegate, the first time in twenty-six 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 221 

years that a preacher was asked as a delegate ; 
and for the first time in its history that con- 
vention was opened with prayer, by a Presby- 
terian minister, who is a fraternal delegate 
from the Central Labor Union of Minneapolis. 

Because of these four facts the church is 
already supreme in the matter of gaining the 
ascendency over the labor question. 

Unfortunately, the church has had too nar- 
row a vision. Evangelistic work is important 
and fundamental. I believe in it with my 
whole heart and give much of my time to it; 
but I want to say very emphatically that no 
amount of evangelistic work engaged in for the 
purpose of reaching the masses can ever take 
the place of some other things the church must 
do if she would capture the labor movement 
for Christ. What are the things that the 
workingman must find in the church if he is to 
be attracted to it? 

In the first place, he must find in the church 
absolute sincerity. Betrayed so often by those 
who pose as his friends and made to believe 
that all business is a trick of which he is the 
victim, it is not surprising that the individual 
workingman becomes mightily suspicious of any 
movement that is supposed to be in his interest. 
Sometimes the very men who have deceived 
him in political life or in economic life have 
been most prominent in the church, and this 
fact has been so widely exploited in the labor 
press and the unions that they have come to be- 



222 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

lieve that all the men in the church are of the 
same type of deceivers. I think again there 
are some Christian men, employers, capitalists, 
whose lives and whose work stand out so con- 
spicuously that it forever gives the lie to this 
miserable slander. If it were not so it would 
make the work very much harder. 

Many of us have come to believe the church 
is the end instead of the people. We plan our 
churches, as a rule, not where the largest num- 
ber of people live and where the need of the 
people is, necessarily, but where the church will 
receive the largest measure of support. 
Within recent years forty Presbyterian 
churches have moved out of the district below 
Twentieth Street in New York City and three 
hundred thousand people have moved in, and 
they were nearly all working people. When- 
ever the church becomes impressed with its 
duty to these down town districts it will organ- 
ize a mission on a side street, in a dark, dingy, 
frequently dirty, building, and put in charge a 
man it will pay six hundred dollars a year, and 
give him problems to solve that would stagger 
a four thousand dollar man. We are simply 
playing at solving these problems and the aver- 
age workingman knows it. 

Sometimes he suspects our motives. Why 
is it the church is interested in the working- 
man? Is it because the church has lost its grip 
upon the masses that it is engaged in the work? 
Though so far as our church is concerned it has 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 223 

been getting a grip upon the workingman. If 
that is our motive we are deceiving no one but 
ourselves. It will be only as the church is 
willing to lose her life that she will find it again 
among the masses of the people. 

In the second place, the workingman must 
find in the church a greater democracy. Does 
anybody suppose that the spirit of patronage 
and paternalism that are so frequently mani- 
fested in the average city mission work is going 
to appeal to the American artisan? If any one 
imagines that let me say he does not under- 
stand the workingman in this country. There 
is nothing he will resent more quickly than the 
spirit of paternalism. 

When I was in the machine shop the presi- 
dent of the Brooklyn Y. M. C. A. came to me 
one day and told me I had been elected a mem- 
ber of the Board of Management of the Y. M. 
C. A. I said, "I cannot raise any money for 
you; I can't even raise the money to join." He 
said, "We don't want your money; we want 
you. ' ' I consented to serve. I met from week 
to week with men, many of them millionaires of 
New York. I would come back to the shop and 
say I had met so and so, and they knew all 
the names. The boys in the shop thought I 
was IT, and they thought they were IT, because 
in taking a man, not even a foreman or super- 
intendent, but a dirty, greasy, oily machinist 
and putting him on the board with millionaires 
they were being honored. Now I couldn't do 



224 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

very much damage on that board. There were 
twenty-three men on that board to vote against 
me if I felt so inclined. But I want to say to 
you that the Y. M. C. A. of Brooklyn never 
made a bigger hit with the workingmen of 
Brooklyn, and when the Presbytery of Brook- 
lyn voted a short time afterwards to send me 
to the Synod at Bochester and paid all my 
traveling expenses and at the hotel — the first 
time I had ever lived in a hotel in my life; I 
was having the time of my life too — these men 
thought they were being honored. That is 
what counts — the spirit of democracy. They 
are familiar with it in their labor halls, in their 
lodges, their clubs ; yes, they are familiar with 
it in every saloon where a five-cent piece puts 
a man on an equality with every other man in 
the place. But they do not always find it in 
the church. 

In the third place, the workingman will be 
attracted to the church when the church 
preaches a clearer social message. When our 
young men study for the ministry they study 
about the social life of the Israelites, the para- 
sites, and the Hittites and all the other 'ites. 
When they get into the pulpit they preach about 
this social life. When a man goes into the 
social life of Chicago and preaches about it 
some brother will say he might better preach 
the simple gospel. I would not have a preacher 
preach on social theories. I have never 
preached a so-called labor sermon in all my 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 225 

ministry. But I want to say to you these work- 
ingHien are not confronted with theories; they 
are conditions. Do you remember when Moses 
came fresh from that vision God gave him in 
the mountain with a special message to the chil- 
dren of Israel who were in bondage, we are told 
they would not listen to Moses because of the 
rigor of their toil. No, even though an angel 
sent from God might come to stir the people, 
aye, and from the throne of God, they would 
not listen to him. 

I feel most strongly, and may I tell you why? 
I went to work when I was eight years old in 
the basement of a New York tenement house, 
in a "sweat shop" you would call it to-day. 
My mother and four sisters and I lived in two 
rear rooms in a rear tenement in that part of 
the tenement house district on the East Side of 
New York. And there she sewed wrappers for 
which she received two dollars a dozen to sup- 
port five children, and often in the night I 
would awake, at nearly midnight and some- 
times after midnight, and find her still plying 
the needle to finish that dozen wrappers a day 
for the sweat shop on Eidge Street to get 
money, because, perchance, she had gone sup- 
perless to bed to give her children something 
to eat. And often it wasn't more than a stale 
roll with a pinch of salt on it, and sometimes 
that is all we had to eat in a week. We had 
not tasted butter for years. 

With that experience behind me, do you won- 

15 



226 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

der that I am sympathetic with the workingman, 
to help them to gain better conditions for them- 
selves ? If I felt that the Presbyterian Church 
had no message with regard to the appeals of 
child labor as I know it, if it cared nothing 
about the five million women that toil in the 
factories and the sweat shops, if it cared noth- 
ing about the unsanitary conditions of the tene- 
ment house as I know it, and in the factory, I 
would go out of the church and I would line up 
with some other organization that is working 
to wipe out these curses of our modern civili- 
zation, and it wouldn't take very much to make 
me do it. 

If I were not a Christian man I need simply 
think of that mother, not yet old in years, but 
broken in health and crippled in body because 
of the awful experiences she passed through 
during those years when she toiled to give me 
bread. I need simply think of those four sis- 
ters and all they passed through, yes, all they 
might have passed through, to make me a rank 
agitator on the other side. 

But the church does care. The resolutions 
of our general assemblies prove it; your ap- 
plause indicates it, and I can go to the work- 
ingmen and say to them that the church does 
care; not as much as she should, I grant you, 
but she is increasingly interested. 

Now one thing else. The workingman will 
be attracted to the church when there is in the 
church a more prophetic spirit. Too long have 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 227 

we been boasting of our glorious traditions. 
The average workingman does not care a rap 
about our glorious traditions. What he wants 
to know is what the church is doing for him. 
Some time ago a committee of workingmen 
came to the Archbishop of London and asked 
him to intercede for them in the matter of ob- 
taining employment. After delivering their 
address to the Archbishop he turned to them 
and replied, "I have been so busy with the 
work of organization in the church that I have 
had no time to study your problems." And 
Kier Hardy said, "If that is true, then you have 
no message for us," and they left him. 

The prophet of the people must understand 
something of the real needs of the people. 
That vision does not come in the seclusion of 
the study. More frequently it comes in the 
labor hall, in the workshop, in the tenement. 
Some day God will raise up a prophet who shall 
win to himself those who at one time heard 
Jesus Christ gladly. That day shall reveal 
whether the church will capture the labor move- 
ment or whether the labor movement will cap- 
ture the church. Much will depend whether 
that prophet comes out of the organized church, 
or whether, as happened two thousand years 
ago, he shall come from the ranks of the com- 
mon people, a despised Nazarene. 



XVII 

THE MEN OF OUR CHURCH AND THE 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 

BY CHARLES GALLAUDET TRUMBULL 

One of the truest, manliest, most spiritually 
minded, successful business men whom it has 
ever been my privilege to know, one time said 
to me with a quiet smile, "Have you ever no- 
ticed that when, in prayer meeting a man has 
nothing to say, he gets up and talks about the 
need of the Holy Spirit?" 

This was said not irreverently, but as giving 
expression to the truth that the subject of 
spiritual life and spiritual power is too often a 
matter of vagueness and uncertainty. Yet the 
getting of spiritual power ought not to be a 
matter of mystery, or vagueness, or uncer- 
tainty, or much seeking, or even of pleading 
with God that he should send it. No man ever 
lived who was half so desirous of having spirit- 
ual power as God is that he should have it. It 
is not a question of God's willingness to grant 
it, or of the Spirit's willingness to come, but 
of our will to open the way. The universe is 
surcharged with spiritual life, — teeming with 
it. How can we get it? 

228 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 229 

There are just two ways. I am not going to 
talk to-day about confession of Jesus Christ as 
our Saviour, or about Bible-study, or about 
prayer. I am going to take those three funda- 
mentals for granted. Of course we must have 
those three; we cannot even move in the direc- 
tion of spiritual power without them. But 
every man here knows that those three things 
by themselves are not enough. Yes, I mean 
just that. A man may have given himself in 
open confession to Christ as his Saviour; he 
may study his Bible daily; he may pray daily; 
and he may still be lacking, consciously lacking, 
woefully lacking, in spiritual life. You know 
that is so. Every man of you could rise in his 
place and bear me witness, out of his own ex- 
perience, that it may be so. I know that it is 
so. I can bear witness, out of my own experi- 
ence, that it may be so. The confession of 
Christ as Saviour, alone, is not enough to main- 
tain a man's spiritual life. Bible-study added 
to this is not enough. And prayer added to 
these is not enough. Prayer alone never gave 
a man a life of spiritual power. AYe might 
stay here and pray for seven hours, or seven 
days, for spiritual power, and go away from 
here to lives barren of this blessing. 

Do not misunderstand me. I have not said 
that a man could ever have spiritual power 
without prayer, without Bible-study, without 
the personal acceptance of the Saviour. Those 
three acts are supremely vital, absolutely es- 



230 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

sential, to spiritual life. They are the founda- 
tion, the only foundation, of spiritual life. 
But they are only the foundation. You cannot 
have a house without a foundation, but you 
may have a foundation without a house. And I 
want you to consider what it is necessary to add 
to this three-fold foundation — Christ, Bible- 
study, and prayer — in order to build the house, 
to complete the structure, to carry out the spe- 
cifications, which Christ has planned for the 
life of every man. 

Just two things will do it: 1. Individual 
soul-winning. 2. Living up to Christ's high- 
est standards in every detail of our business or 
commercial life. 

Is that such an old story that it's common- 
place? It is old; the principle goes back to 
the beginning of things; but its application is 
not yet commonplace. Men of the Brotherhood, 
we are not doing this. If the Presbyterian 
men of this convention should leave Indian- 
apolis and go home to do these two things, in 
Christ's strength, daily, from now until death, 
North America would know such an awakening 
and revival as the world has not seen since the 
Day of Pentecost. 

Individual soul-winning is the only way men 
ever have been brought to Christ, and it is the 
only way men ever will be. It was Christ's 
preferred way of working; and preaching can- 
not compare with it as a method of winning 
souls. Christ's own preaching brought no such 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 231 

results as did his individual work. We need 
not hope to improve upon him and his methods. 
Preaching is necessary and important as pre- 
paratory work, but the harvest must be hand- 
picked. The strongest pastors know this, and 
work accordingly. 

And I am sure every pastor here will agree 
with me when I say that the laymen who make 
up the body of this Brotherhood have even a 
greater opportunity for individual soul-winning 
than have the ministers. For the layman is 
closer than any pastor can be to the mass of 
men who need Christ and who know him not, 
down on the street, in the office, on the road; 
our opportunity to tell such men of our Saviour 
is a hundred-fold that of the pastor's. Henry 
Ward Beecher once said, "The longer I live, 
the more confidence I have in those sermons 
preached where one man is the minister and 
one man is the congregation; where there's no 
question as to who is meant when the preacher 
says, ' Thou art the man. ' ' ' This form of work 
does not shut the pastors out, but it lets us in. 
And if we don't come in, we are a drag in the 
kingdom. Charles Alexander is convinced 
that "the man who is not doing personal work 
has sin in his heart." We cannot dodge this. 

And the second point : Living up to Christ's 
highest standards in every detail of our busi- 
ness life. Are we doing it? In Turkey and 
Syria the Mohammedans reverence Jesus 
Christ ; so much so that they believe G-od could 



232 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

not have let liim be crucified, and their tradi- 
tion is that Judas Iscariot was supernaturally 
substituted for Jesus and died on the Cross. 
They look upon Christ as one of the best and 
greatest teachers who ever lived. But they do 
not identify Christ at all with Christians. To 
them Christian means everything that is con- 
temptible and unworthy. When the World's 
Sunday-school Convention met in Jerusalem 
two years ago, the Turkish authorities sent ex- 
tra police and military forces to the spot in 
order to preserve the peace and prevent blood- 
shed ; for to them a Christian gathering usually 
meant a riot, a fight of the Christians with each 
other. 

How about it in this country? Does the 
world always identify the Christian business 
man with the life and teachings of Christ? Is 
the portrait of Christ always recognizable in all 
our business dealings? 

A Christian man said to an atheist, "How 
do you quiet your conscience while you are in 
such a desperate state of mind in your attitude 
toward God?" 

"How do you quiet your conscience," the 
atheist retorted, "while, believing as you 
claim to believe about God, you live so much 
like the world?" 

Just how far in the line of personal sacrifice 
are we willing to go in bringing our business 
lives up to Christ's highest standards? Are 
we willing to lose money for him? Are we 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 233 

willing to take ridicule, and be called pious, in 
business, for him? Are we willing to lose our 
position, and bunt another job, for him? 
Every time we are, we are deepening our spirit- 
ual life and gaining in spiritual power. 

If we can't hold our present business posi- 
tions and keep true to Christ's highest stand- 
ard in every detail of the work, then the great- 
est blessing we can lay hold on will be to give 
up that position, and get into a business where 
Christ can come too. That will mean spiritual 
power. If we can't make quite as much money, 
or if we can't make any money at all, in this 
particular "deal" that we have on, by holding 
to the highest standard Christ has taught us, 
let's get the blessing he has for us by losing 
money just now. It will pay. 

A young business man, a stranger to me, 
came into my office last spring and said that he 
wanted to talk over with me a business ques- 
tion that was facing him. He was employed 
by a house that had agreed with other concerns 
in the same line of business to maintain a cer- 
tain rate for the selling of certain goods. His 
house was accustomed, however, to make allow- 
ances to favored customers for fictitious bills, 
thus breaking the rate agreed upon. It was 
the old story of "rebates." The head of his 
department was away temporarily, and this 
young man, filling his place, must himself con- 
duct the transactions. And that he did not 
want to do. 



234: THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

He went to one of the heads of the business 
and told him frankly that he could not on prin- 
ciple do this. The indulgent answer was to 
i i think it over, ' ' or to talk it over with any good 
business man whose judgment the young man 
had confidence in, and he was assured that 
he would soon find that it was a little matter, so 
commonly practised that it simply had to be 
tolerated if business was to go on at all. And 
the young man did me the honor of talking it 
over with me. 

I told him that he had come to the wrong 
place for confirmation of his employer's opin- 
ion. That was all he wanted; his own mind 
was made up, and he simply wanted a word of 
encouragement to hold true to what he was con- 
vinced was right. He went back and resigned 
his position. He had been only recently mar- 
ried. I wrote to him to ask how matters were 
going with him, and I want to read you an ex- 
tract from the letter I had in answer : 

"Suffice it to say that my old position paid 
me thirty dollars per week, working eight hours 
a day; my present job pays me twenty-five dol- 
lars, and the day is ten hours. That's what it 
has cost so far. In every other way I think I 
am safe in saying that the sacrifice has paid a 
' hundred-fold.' Sometimes my heart is over- 
whelmed with the goodness of God in our home 
life which has seemed to follow the move; and 
some happenings that have lessened our home 
expenses I think have almost balanced the petty 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 235 

financial side. I am a thousand times glad yon 
helped me to settle the question right. ' ' 

But that man's life is not over yet. I do not 
know what you think about it, but I believe 
that business success lies ahead of him. 

For, men, the strange thing about it is that 
with spiritual power that has been purchased 
at the price of utter self-sacrifice, money-sacri- 
fice, sacrifice of everything except Christ, will 
come present, temporal, earthly success. Don't 
you believe it? Didn't you know you had 
Christ's own word for this? Listen! 

" Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, There is 
no man that hath left house, or brethren, or 
sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or chil- 
dren, or lands, for my sake, and the Gospel's, 
but he shall receive an hundred fold now in this 
time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and 
mothers, and children, and lands, with perse- 
cution ; and in the world to come eternal life. ' ' 

No, men, the winning of spiritual power is 
not a losing game, either for this world or for 
'the next. Its price is "Service." Remember 
what has been so well said : 

"Power, to its last particle, is duty. 97 

Duty that tramples on self. For the Holy 
Spirit and self cannot live in the same body. 

And spiritual power is of value only as it is 
spent. The man who gets it to hold it, loses it. 
Spend self along with the power, if you would 
be in living connection with the power that 
knows no end or limit. 



xvm 

THE MEN OF OUE CHURCH, AND CIVIL 
AFFAIRS 

BY IRA LASTDRITH, D.D., LLr.D. 

Mr. Chairman. — It relieves this platform of 
embarrassment in that direction, at least, when 
we recall the fact that those of us who have 
been honored with the privilege of speaking 
here have not had a committee to make a pro- 
gram for the future of this Brotherhood move- 
ment. What we say is of no larger concern 
than the expression of private opinion. Yet 
to some of us, since this is an organization for 
men, it has seemed very plain that this move- 
ment must discuss men's problems, must attack 
men's difficulties, must undertake to overcome 
men's enemies. Herein lies the real reason 
for the organization. "We have no need of 
another church. We are not organizing an- 
other Young Men's Christian Association; we 
need but one, and we need that desperately. 
For the Young Men's Christian Association, let 
it be said here, parenthetically but gratefully, is 
the bearing out of the idea that we are giving 
form in this convention, and deserves to have 

236 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 237 

this meed of praise given to it, that it made ef- 
fective the idea that a man who is a member of 
a Christian Association for men only cannot 
be religious in the name of his wife. 

We are certainly not here for the purpose of 
organizing another Ladies' Aid Society or a 
sewing circle or a pink tea. This is a federa- 
tion of church men to help men become Chris- 
tians, to help masculine Christians to become 
men, and do both these things through men 
who are under Presbyterian influences. 

There are dangers in it. There is the danger 
that it may aim at too many things and hit 
nothing. There is even the danger that an 
organization like this might aim at nothing and 
hit it. There is, of course, the constant hazard 
of duplication of agencies and forces, but there 
is more real danger of too much timidity and 
too much regard for expediency, and too much 
fear of hitting something worth hitting. Chris- 
tian men in this country could do what they 
would if they would do what they could. 

Conservatism has as one of its Websterian 
definitions, "preservatism," and there is a dan- 
ger of too much conservatism in a movement 
like this. There is not any middle ground be- 
tween right and wrong. There is no place 
for arbitration between good and bad. There 
is no reason why a movement like this 
should be afraid to hit the wrong and en- 
courage the right. But the church's chief 
mission, we are told, everywhere and always, 



238 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

is the salvation of souls. Let it be con- 
ceded that that is important, but the salva- 
tion of itself and the commonwealth of the 
Spirit is the chief mission of the church of 
Jesus Christ. Its business is to make this busi- 
ness as easy as possible. Its business is to get 
the difficulties out of the way of the salvation 
and spiritual strength of men. We had an 
evangelist in the South whose recent lamented 
death we regret, who belonged to his own class, 
and who ought not to have had an imitator, who 
had a way of saying, "We Christians are fur 
enough things, but we are not agin' enough.' J 
There is danger that a movement like this may 
not understand that the evangelization of 
America would be hastened if we would get 
rid of a good deal of the evil that is licensed in 
this land, and mine is the plea to-night for the 
evangelization of America by the use of the 
manhood of America in cleaning America up so 
that the young men may have time to find Christ. 
When John G-. Paton came back to America 
and asked us to send no more grog to the 
islands of the sea because the presence of the 
liquor was a menace to Christian missionary ac- 
tivity, we applauded him ; yet, when an Ameri- 
can stands before a Christian audience in 
America and says, "Get rid of the saloon," the 
men who continually patronize the saloon would 
tell you to keep out of politics. Men must ab- 
hor that which is evil as well as cleave to that 
which is good. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 239 

Now, civil affairs are men's business. Don't 
tell me that I have no business in politics if 
politics gets rotten. That is the resort of the 
political informer everywhere and always. 
You never saw a red-nosed ward-heeler who 
didn't claim that the Christian has no business 
in politics, and it is taken up as gospel truth 
by timid, weak-kneed cowardly church mem- 
bers. It is vice that has no business in politics. 
Hurl it back. The man who will sell his vote, 
or the man who will buy one, is the man who 
ought to be disfranchised. If a Christian is 
anything he is a specialist in what is right, and 
if he is a specialist in what is right he ought 
to know what is right in politics, and he has not 
any business throwing up his hands and plead- 
ing ignorance when politics get vicious. We 
are forever appealing to the example of Christ 
and proving by it to our complacent satisfac- 
tion that we ought to fold our hands and mere- 
ly pray for the presence of the Holy Spirit. I 
believe as implicitly as any being can in the 
presence and power of the Spirit of Him who 
promised to send us a comforter, but because 
Christ in a despotism which no individual 
could control was not an anarchist and a nihi- 
list, we insist that in this Eepublic where we 
are all kings we too shall undertake to let the 
situation remain as it is. But Christ rendered 
unto Caesar the things that were Caesar's. He 
also turned the rascals out, didn't he? and ex- 
pressed himself on the subject of public vice. 



240 



THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 



Yet we are told because, forsooth, we are 
Christians we do not need to know anything 
about it. 

This whole theory of Christian imbecility on 
political matters has been one some of us have 
submitted to as complacently as we could, and 
we have not been proud of our patience. "We 
ought to know, we ought to teach, political 
moral conditions and duties, and I am inclined 
to think that since this is an organization for 
men only some of these things are likely to creep 
into its discussions. Let me say here, lest 
somebody go away and misunderstand me, and 
therefore misrepresent me — for nobody could 
misrepresent without misunderstanding — that 
I do not here plead for a religious organization 
to take part in any kind of political movement, 
or discussion of any kind of political question 
that is not essentially moral; but I do plead 
that this organization and the men who belong 
to it shall not balk when a question of morals 
chances to be cloaked in political guise. We 
ought to know and not be afraid to tell of other 
facts about such conditions as this, that great 
public unrest in America, — things that because 
of their political nature are responsible for la- 
bor troubles, things which because they have a 
moral element in them have produced political 
parties ; things which have had much to do with 
making the poor poorer, and the rich richer; 
things that have created in some quarters in 
this country that wholesale murder which is 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 241 

done in the name of a mob. You ought to know 
and not hesitate to tell the truth about grafting 
and bribery. For political corruption, said a 
great American, is not political corruption. 
There is no such thing as political corruption ; 
it is just corruption. We ought not to hesitate 
to denounce the dangers in sectionalism. We 
ought not to be afraid to consider in this move- 
ment the vices that have crept into marriage 
and divorce in this country. But, gentlemen, 
when we have done all these things and a hun- 
dred others essential in politics we are just 
bound to reach the one great evil, the so-called 
American saloon. 

I am not unaware of the fact that our lead- 
ing political workers in this country have tried 
to disguise the fact that nearly all of the evil 
lies back of the green baize door, but the fel- 
lows who try to hide it and tell us it is not so 
lack information. We have heard a good deal 
about a debased currency. It is high time we 
were learning the dangers of a debased man- 
hood. We have heard a good deal about the 
foreign problem. A far greater problem is the 
home one. We have taken care of our infant 
industries ; it is high time we were taking care 
of our infants themselves. It has not been so 
long since that some of us have forgotten it, 
that the two great national parties tried to 
solve the financial problem in the neighborhood 
of a silver mine, and yet the financial problem 
is to close up the saloon. I know it and you 

16 



242 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

know it. I do not want to dwell upon it, and 
yet we spend enough money on liquor to buy 
six Cubas. We talk about the production of 
silver, and in one year we spend more money 
for liquor than we took out of the ground in 
twenty years. We talk about such things when 
last year a magazine said we spent enough 
money for liquor to build homes for five hun- 
dred thousand families in America, or two and 
a half million people, more than the entire 
population of the states of New Hampshire, 
Rhode Island, Maine, and North Dakota, and 
clothing and provisions for twelve months; 
spend twenty dollars for books ; fifty dollars for 
church and charitable purposes; and build for 
each family houses costing one thousand, five 
hundred dollars apiece, with three hundred and 
fifty dollars apiece to furnish them, leaving a 
balance of two hundred and sixty-four million 
dollars to build two hundred and eighteen thou- 
sand churches costing five thousand dollars 
apiece. 

This association can well afford to promote 
the publicity of such facts as that. This associa- 
tion knows and everybody else knows that evil's 
greatest dread is the light. When we tell the 
truth about the saloon it has got to go. When 
the world learns how vicious it is it will not stay 
an hour. Informed, the people always do right, 
and the press of this country is a good medium 
to tell the truth about vice, high and low. I 
wish I had the time to pay a tribute to the clean 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 243 

and rapidly growing cleaner character of 
American journalism, which is ahead of Ameri- 
can public sentiment. 

This association can promote political purity 
and it ought to do it. The time has come when 
the individual Christian cannot afford to be 
less than politically clean. This is the age of 
being not only good, but good for a good deal. 
Men ought to vote as they pray, and the future 
of our church will depend on our men doing 
their duty inside the church. Many of the men 
in this country are hesitant about their duties 
as office holders because of the denunciation 
of office holders. Ten years ago in our state the 
politicians in our state said, "If you interfere 
with our saloons you will interfere with per- 
sonal liberty. ' ' We put the saloon out of every 
town in the state but thirteen and were going to 
put them out, but that side said they would ex- 
tend the temperance laws if the other side 
wanted them; and the other side came along 
and said, We will extend them whether you 
want them or not. We are reaching the point 
where it is about as wrong to steal a ballot as 
to steal a bullet; that a franchise stolen is no 
less a crime than to steal a fortune ; that it is as 
bad to steal by a corporation as by a trust and 
no more. 

This association can well afford to promote 
civic activity. Politically, as a rule, the vir- 
tuous do not vote. The vicious never fail to 
vote. Twenty-five per cent never vote at all. 



244 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

You will remember — and I do not want to re- 
peat the name of the city here — a journalist 
went to a certain city and wrote it up. He 
wrote back to his magazine, "This city is cor- 
rupt and content,' ' and that is the difficulty 
with too many of us. I would like to be rea- 
sonable, but I want to be a reasonable radical. 

This association has no precedents. It is 
not worried with partiality. Suppose it under- 
takes to make it evident that a Christian ought 
to be a Christian on election day as well as at 
prayer meeting. Suppose it becomes one of 
the pieces of business you and I are to perform 
to tell a man that he ought not to throw his 
vote away. It is going to be hard work to do 
the work to be done in this direction, but it can 
be done. 

Finally, we can afford to teach and preach 
and practice political patience and indefatig- 
ability. Let us make the officers we elect en- 
force the laws they were elected to enforce. A 
man who reached the Presidency of the United 
States said, i ' The worst evil in any community 
is unenforced law." The trouble with the vir- 
tuous men in politics is that they get tired too 
early. We ought to teach the truth that the 
man who enters the fight ought to be a tireless 
individual. 

But now I am done — I wish I were done — I 
want to close with this word — No, I won't. 
Do you know what kind of a temptation you are 
submitting me to? If you knew me, you 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 245 

wouldn't have done that. But I prayed this 
day, "Lead us not into temptation." 

Finally, brethren, this President of the 
United States, who deserves a good many of 
the things said about him, good, few of the 
things said about him, bad — and I have heard 
nothing worse about him than that I sometimes 
look like him — the President of the United 
States is said to have had the manhood to de- 
clare, "When I see a thing is true I will go to 
work to put it through.' ' That is what we are 
asking you to do. 



XIX 

THE MEN OF OUE CHUECH AND BIBLE 

STUDY 

BY W. W. WHITE, D.D. 

Over our heads hangs a banner with a 
strange device: Nee tamen consumebatur — "It 
was not consumed." Why? Because God was 
in it. Beneath that banner hangs another and 
on it are the words, "Brotherhood in Service." 
"Will it be consumed? That depends. Back 
of the Brotherhood, back of the service, back 
of social service, back of evangelism, back of 
politics, back of manhood, are the people and 
the God who is in the people. There is a hand. 
There are five fingers, and every finger comes 
out of the hand. Bible study sustains the re- 
lationship of the hand to these five fingers. 

The speaker who has just preceded me has 
said that this organization has no precedents. 
If I am not mistaken it has no constitution yet. 
We have heard of the Kentucky senator, was 
it? — some senator who had lost his health, and 
some one remarked to him that he had lost his 
constitution. Yes, he said he had, and was liv- 
ing on the by-laws. Now we can get along 

246 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 247 

without a constitution; we can get along with- 
out by-laws, even, but you will not be able to 
exist, to make progress, or to be fruitful, un- 
less you make very prominent in your plan of 
work the Bible study department of this move- 
ment. The Bishop of Liverpool has said that 
one great need of our age is prayerful, syste- 
matic study of the Holy Scriptures. I came 
across this most interesting sentence from 
Spurgeon only last week. He said once, "We 
ought to make every effort to know the truth 
better, but we must understand, to begin with, 
that we shall never know better truth." I 
think I may venture to thank God in the pres- 
ence of this great company of men that they 
are not disposed to seek for better truth, and I 
believe that I voice your sentiment when I stand 
here in your presence to-night and call you all 
to a better knowledge of the truth. 

Here is a proposition with which we should 
begin, that we should set ourselves to know the 
Bible better and the Bible as it is. From my 
friend Colonel Brown, who is known as the 
"Bird and Bee Man of Indiana," I got once 
a most helpful illustration of a point I want 
to make plain right here. He pictured a man 
going out and observing a bird darting among 
the bees in his yard. He concluded the bird 
was eating the bees, so he went and got a shot- 
gun and killed the bird. Just as the bird fell 
a friend came along and said, "Why did you do 
that?" He said, "That bird is eating my 



248 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

bees." The friend said, "Let us examine the 
bees that the bird has eaten." So they took 
the body of the bird and opened it and exam- 
ined the bees and found that not a single bee 
in that bird's craw had a stinger in it. He 
found that this bird was eating the drones and 
that a surplus of these bees was provided by 
nature for this bird. 

This illustration is for the purpose of em- 
phasizing this fact, which as I study the Bible, 
I am more and more persuaded we should rec- 
ognize, that we should let the Bible alone, just 
as we ought to let nature alone until we know 
what nature's processes are and what her rea- 
sons are for doing things. I believe that the 
God who has made nature round us has given 
us the Bible, and the more and more cautious 
am I about changing the Bible the more and 
more am I persuaded that the thing for you 
and me to do is to study the Bible; that is, to 
study it for practical purposes. 

I have been father confessor for college stu- 
dents in the East and the West in reference to 
the study of the Bible, and one of the great mis- 
takes the colleges and some seminaries are mak- 
ing is that they are reconstructing the Bible; 
that they are spending the time that ought to 
be spent in knowing the Bible in deciding ques- 
tions about controverted dates and other ques- 
tions about the Bible, instead of coming to the 
study of the book itself first of all. There is a 
time for the study of those questions, but for 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 249 

young people at any rate, that time is after 
they have known the Bible and have become 
persuaded by the actual test of it that it is the 
word of God. Here is a bicycle. A man has 
never seen a bicycle or known of its use by 
experience or observation, and somebody tells 
him that this is a bicycle, and that it is capa- 
ble of carrying him along the road. Yon might 
have difficulty in persuading him of the truth of 
that, but after he himself had had experience 
on a bicycle he would be safe in taking it to 
pieces and examining its parts. There is a re- 
versal of the order to-day, which is not best. 

I want to speak first of the message of the 
Bible. The great message of the Bible is God. 
Awhile ago I was asked by the Y. M. C. A. to 
prepare a series of studies on Old Testament 
characters. I studied Abraham. Before I 
studied him long I discovered I wasn't study- 
ing men, but God. The God of Abraham. 
Now I realize that the Bible tells us about God 
before, but we know how we have realized the 
truth for years and how all at once it flashes 
out. I had a wonderful experience in studying 
these old testament characters in relation to 
God, and I understood that in the selection of 
the material in the Bible, the writers have se- 
lected that about these men and women which 
relates to God and God's character. It is God 
we want if we are going to stand for the right, 
and if our children are going to stand for the 
right; and if those people who are coming in- 



250 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

to our country by the million are going to stand 
for the right, we must have an unprecedented 
advance in the knowledge we give ourselves, 
and we must have an unprecedented advance 
in the propagation of the word of God. 

May I stop right here to suggest that one of 
the best resolutions that a man from this point 
can make is that he will study the Bible, not 
merely for the purpose — that will come inci- 
dentally — of strengthening his own Christian 
life, but in order that he may make other peo- 
ple know his God? If you will allow me to be 
intensely practical I should like to suggest that 
one of the best things you can do to fill your 
church is to organize a little circle for Bible 
study somewhere in a room — we call them in 
New York, "Dining-room Bible classes." One 
of the things to do is to go to some man and 
have him invite in some of his neighbors once a 
week and you read a chapter to them and talk 
about it awhile. 

This body has no precedents. Do something 
unprecedented in the line of Bible study. I 
wish the laymen of this convention would set 
the great Presbyterian Church on fire by re- 
questing, or demanding, if you cannot get it 
otherwise, of its ministry the exposition of the 
Scriptures. Suggest to your minister some- 
thing like this : Have him take a vote on the ten 
most popular chapters in the Bible, and you 
will find how many chapters you would like to 
number in this list. The fourteenth chapter of 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 251 

John will be one of them. Have him announce 
the week before that in the second service he 
will give five reasons why the chapter of John 
is one of the most popular chapters in the Bible, 
and before he gives those five reasons himself 
he will study to find ont why the chapter is the 
most popular chapter in the Bible. What we 
want in this day is to put a stimulus into the 
study of the Bible. We want to stimulate men 
to examine the Scriptures themselves and then 
allow them to express themselves concerning 
them. 

One of the secrets of success in teaching is 
in assigning a lesson. Assign a lesson to your- 
self and then give the class the lesson and give 
a reason for it. Put yourself in a position so 
that it will be necessary for you to prepare 
your lesson. 

I had an interesting experience with a min- 
ister in the East this last winter. He was 
afraid to break away from his way of preach- 
ing. I said: "Take a chapter and spend all 
week on it if necessary. Get a theme from it 
and preach on it as a whole." He tried it. 
He went before the congregation and preached 
for the first time on a whole chapter. He trem- 
bled all through it, but I congratulated him up- 
on the result and he has been preaching on that 
line ever since. 

Let me come back to the second part of the 
thought and I shall close. The thought is the 
opportunity of the people and the opportunity 



252 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

of the ministry that I have spoken of. Some 
people think Bible study is an end in itself. 
Let us have the effect of that: "Search the 
scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal 
life: and they are they which testify of me. 
And ye will not come to me, that ye might 
have life." Those Jews made the mistake 
which a great many people nowadays are mak- 
ing of stopping with the word of God itself 
and not going to him to whom the word of God 
points. In emphasis of that point I use this 
illustration. A man was going along the road 
and saw a guide post and an Irishman sitting 
upon the cross-bar of the guide post. He said, 
"What are you sitting there for?" He said, 
"Don't you see? This says it will take you to 
Malvern. I have been here two hours waiting 
for the thing to start." A great many people 
stop with the Bible itself instead of going to 
him to whom the Bible points. 

The third thought I should like to develop 
is the great power of the Bible. In the second 
Epistle to Timothy we have this passage: 
"From a babe thou hast known the sacred writ- 
ings which are able to make thee wise unto sal- 
vation. ' ' 

We have been taking that 16th verse out and 
making it a full proof of inspiration. Now the 
doctrine of inspiration is all right, but Paul was 
not thinking of the doctrine of inspiration, but 
about the use of the word of God. He said 
to Timothy, "Abide thou in the word which is 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 253 

able to make thee wise unto salvation." In 
addition to being able to make wise unto sal- 
vation, by teaching, by reproof, and by correc- 
tion the Scriptures are able to make the men of 
God "complete, furnished completely unto 
every good work." I used to think it was my 
duty to bring people to Christ. Now I recog- 
nize the fact that God has appointed a means to 
bring men to Christ. The word is able to bring 
men to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 
It is my duty to know the word of God. It is 
my duty to know my God. 

The last thought is the great result of the 
study of the Bible. I have seen my father walk 
through a field with a sack over his shoulder 
scattering grain. That was before the time of 
drills. I remember it, and I am not so old. 
Now you remember the parable of the sower, 
and the teaching, "Take heed what ye hear," 
that follows. It would take a man down and 
back, and down and back again, to sow the 
width of this building. Here was a hard path- 
way, and this man went down the field and re- 
gardless of the different kinds of soil, he scat- 
tered the seed. The seed that fell upon the 
hard pathway the birds of the air came and 
took away. The pathway had the seed taken 
away from it because it would not receive it. 
But the fertile soil received the seed and the 
result was that it returned some thirty, some 
sixty, and some a hundredfold. "Take heed 
what ye hear." Look out for hearsay. The 



254 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

Lord is not talking about any kind of seed 
other than good seed. For he said, "The seed 
is the word of God. ' ' It is a good seed in this 
connection and the thing he wants ns to do is 
to take heed of what we do. He also tells us 
in regard to the kingdom, that the seed which 
is sown must die if it is not sown in the right 
way ; and since the kingdom must die no fruit- 
fulness must result. 

Eead before you go home — and this is my 
last word — the fourth chapter of Zechariah, 
which has in it that well-known word, "Not by 
might, nor by power, but by my Spirit.' ' You 
have the illustration of the olive tree growing 
beside the candle-stick. The oil is flowing out 
of the olive tree into the lamp and the lights 
are burning. That is the picture I should like 
to leave with you to-night. Take heed to the 
inner life. Be careful about your own life. 
Study the Bible for the purpose of improving 
your life. Let the life which comes into you 
go out and it will be everlasting and fruitful. 



XX 

THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD 

BY EOBEKT E. SPEER 

Every movement must have its goal. If it 
is a movement in any true sense at all, it must 
be moving toward some end, and the clearness 
with which it discerns its end, and the intensity 
and steadfastness with which it pursues it, are 
the elements which determine the power of the 
movement and the weight of its impact on life. 

It is from this view that we understand the 
power of the early church. It did not, it is 
true, at once discern what its great purpose 
was, but when it had come to see clearly why 
it was in the world it set about attaining its 
object with an intensity and a steadfastness 
which enabled it to shake the world. We un- 
derstand in the same way the tremendous power 
with which the movement of Mohammedanism 
began twelve hundred years ago. It had a 
great purpose, and realizing what that purpose 
was in the effort to attain that purpose it was 
ready to make any sacrifice, and Islam swept 
out irresistibly over the world. And Islam 
has degenerated and become impotent to-day 

255 



256 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

simply because it has lost that great object or 
purpose, and so far as the Christian Church is 
impotent to-day it is because it has forgotten 
what its original object was, has ceased to be 
an army engaged in a great, aggressive cam- 
paign, and has actually descended to singing 
about its being a ' i garden walled around. ' ' 

There has always been and is still a divine 
Power in the church which has prevented and 
will always prevent it from sinking as low as 
Mohammedanism has sunk. But the great need 
of the church to-day and the great need of 
every agency of the church is another discovery, 
or a re-revealing of what its great object or 
purpose is, and then a fresh dedication of sac- 
rificial zeal in achieving that purpose in the 
world. 

Now we cannot create a purpose that would 
support a great movement. We cannot gal- 
vanize a great movement into life by assigning 
to it any artificially created purpose; we can 
only keep it going when it has a purpose, a pur- 
pose which is never forgotten and which can be 
communicated to men. 

I have a friend, once professor in a theolog- 
ical school, who told me after an extended 
visit among the schools of the church that the 
thing that made him most sorrowful as he went 
about was the obscuring of the objective pur- 
pose of the church, the apparent forgetfulness 
of what the church was in the world for, and 
of training life to a realization of that pur- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 257 

pose as the business of the church as well as 
of every member of the church; and we can 
not do better in this closing hour of our gather- 
ing in this convention than to try to re-define 
to ourselves what the great, dominant and con- 
trolling purpose must be. 

Now, gentlemen, it must be something great, 
and that means it cannot be anything local. 
We cannot maintain the Christian Church on 
issues confined to any one nation, however great 
and valuable and important those issues may 
be. We have got to set before a movement like 
the movement of the Christian Church — a 
movement like this represented here this even- 
ing — an object broader than can be found with- 
in the interests of any one nation. We have 
got to have a purpose so great that none of the 
interests of mankind are foreign to that pur- 
pose. It must be a definite object. We can- 
not maintain a great movement like the Chris- 
tian Church on an object that can be spread 
over interminable centuries. If we would have 
a church like the Apostolic Church, we have 
got to set before it an object that is a compel- 
ling object. It must be heroic and sacrificial. 
We cannot claim the kind of life that we pro- 
pose to claim for Jesus Christ and his church 
by any object that does not claim from men ab- 
solutely everything. If we do not demand much 
from men, we will not get much from them. If 
you demand everything you will get everything. 

When the Lord walked out into the world 

17 



258 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

and wanted to find men on whose shoulders he 
could lay the responsibility of his kingdom, he 
did not get them by offering to give them any- 
thing, he got these men by demanding of them 
absolutely the sacrifice of everything. 

I have heard a great many discussions as 
to why it is that the young men are not coming 
in larger numbers into the Christian ministry. 
There are many reasons. I will tell you that 
one of the reasons is that the appeal is not 
made sufficiently heroic and sacrificial to them. 
Some of the best k men in school and college 
give over their purpose because the method of 
the presentation of the claims of the Christian 
ministry obscures to their vision the heroic 
sacrifice of the service of Christ. If you are 
going to get the kind of men you want you 
have got to present to them the life heroic and 
sacrificial. Where can you find it except where 
the early church found it? Not in any ficti- 
tious object, not in any humanly created ob- 
ject, but in the object that brought Christ him- 
self down into the world, the object he formu- 
lated when he was saying, "Uttermost Parts.' 9 
And when the church came to itself and came to 
a realization of what its great purpose in the 
world was, the early church did not conceive 
its mission to be merely social or merely politi- 
cal; it did not conceive its mission to be any- 
thing small or transitory or un-universal ; it 
conceived its mission to be nothing less than 
the realization of the experience of Christ in 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 259 

the life of every man in the church and that the 
men of the church shall present Christ to the 
experience of every other man in the world. 
And with that great object before it, knowing 
it had work, and a definite, imperative work 
to do, it went out and shook the mighty world. 
And what we want to-day is simply a naked 
uncovering, and by the church, of what her 
great and imperative mission in the world is. 

I do not say the church has not other mis- 
sions. I said to Dr. Landrith, that the church 
has many missions, but they are dependent upon 
her great and primary mission, and that great 
and primary mission was the personal experi- 
ence of Christ, and the presentation of Christ to 
the experience of every nation of men the 
world around. We can put it all in one very 
simple phrase, in a phrase which I have been 
assigned to speak upon this evening, The Great 
Mission of the Church: The Evangelization of 
the World. Now that does not mean, let us 
make it clear, that we have set before ourselves 
an undefined non-understood object; that does 
not mean the conversion of the world. We can- 
not define any movement by what it does not 
hope to effect. Our Lord does not expect to 
convert everybody. If Christ could not convert 
men, do you suppose you and I can do it? The 
best we can offer to men is that which it is with- 
in the power of every man to reject if he will. 
The church has no charge to convert the world ; 
it has no power to do so. The great primary 



260 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

object of the church is to make Christ known 
to the hearts of men. Can we contemplate a 
simpler, nobler object than that? In the most 
civilized section of our own land all that has 
been done so far, as it is truly real and abiding, 
is the result of planting the life of Christ in the 
hearts of men; and the evangelization of the 
world is the carrying of that life, the life which 
can alone work the reclamation of the world, 
all over this world, an offer of it to every 
human life the world around. 

That was the primary purpose of the church 
at the beginning. That was the principle ob- 
ject set before the church as the men who con- 
stituted the early church understood it. That 
was the great personal ambition of Paul, that 
he might make Christ known where he was not 
known; that he might not build on other men's 
foundations but that he might carry that great 
gospel to all the world. 

I ask you gentlemen, for a moment, what 
would be the effect of a realization by the 
church of that as the great object and purpose 
of the church to-day? Oh, what a clarifying 
of the vision there would be! Oh, what an 
illumination of the vision there would be ! Oh, 
what sacrifice and love! Oh, how men would 
begin to plan their lives in an entirely different 
way ! There is not a man in this hall this even- 
ing who would not go out and rearrange all 
the activities of his life if this object dominated 
his life. They would plan their lives as though 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 261 

this was the primary business of life. The 
church would move out to do her legitimate pri- 
mary work, which is to make Jesus Christ 
known to all the world. All our Christian ac- 
tivity here at home will be limited and ham- 
pered in its power so long as the Christian 
Church is blind to what its business is and 
forfeits this great increase in power which will 
come to her only when she goes everywhere 
with her message. The Presbyterian Church 
has forgotten her great primary business in 
the world, because the individual men in the 
church have forgotten it, and you and I need 
that our personal eyes be opened just as truly 
as the church needs it for her corporate life. 
Men are leading to-day as they never led be- 
fore. But men serve temporary and transient 
interests now. We must be allied with some 
great and masterly cause. You are not going 
to get great men isolated from a cause. Even 
a weak man can be made strong by a great 
cause, and the great need of this Brotherhood, 
the great need of all the men of our church, 
the great need of all the men of all the 
churches is just the clear perception of what 
the business of the Christian man's life is 
in the world, which is absolute devotion to 
that great cause which brought Christ down 
here and laid the life of God on the souls of 
men. 

I should like to say a word practically as to 
what this is to mean. Over in the other section 



262 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

of the world we have lands for which we are 
responsible. The Board with which I am con- 
nected is trying to deal with that problem. 
And it is not a hard problem. If we could 
multiply by five the money and men and women 
we have we could succeed in one generation in 
bringing the gospel into the reach of every 
man, woman, and child of the hundred millions 
or less who constitute our peculiar people. 
Our Presbyterian Church thinks it an imprac- 
tical undertaking? Men would not hesitate to 
undertake a great interest such as this here at 
home. Every man ought to realize that Christ 
called men to do such things. What did he say 
to the first disciples? "If you will come after 
me I will make you rich so that you will have 
the power of money? If you will come with me 
I will give you political power? If you will 
come along with me I will make you fishers of 
men. I will link you to me, you shall give 
light upon darkness, and call men back from 
their wanderings, and prove to them that they 
can have life and purity and power.' ' Is there 
anything impractical in that? 

In taking up our personal obligation and duty 
here as men whose duty it is to deal with men, 
I want to make that point just a little more 
clear, to set it in the right relations with what 
we have heard earlier this evening. Our busi- 
ness is to right all wrong, to stop all evil and 
vice and sin; but our business is also to keep 
our eye on the man. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 263 

Now our Lord never lost sight of the man he 
was after. In the midst of the abuses and the 
evil, not as you and I, did he see first the great 
wrong. That was illustrated in the instance of 
the Levite ; did he see the wrong that was em- 
bodied there? He saw not a system, not a 
wrong principle; he saw a man. And I think 
our Lord's social teaching was obiter, by the 
way. He threw himself against the social evils 
of his time, and we are bound to go out fighting 
the wrong. Nevertheless Jesus Christ never 
allowed himself by any enthusiasm for the 
reformation of the world which he felt, never 
allowed himself by bitterness, antagonism, in- 
justice or wrong to any one, all of which he 
felt more intensely than we can feel them — 
never allowed himself to be turned from the 
man to be reached. And we may be sure, if we 
catch his spirit, if the great primary business of 
the church becomes clear to us, we will see these 
men here, there, everywhere, and make it the 
first hunger of our hearts to bring them to him, 
and evangelize, which is our business here. 
And he will allow absolutely nothing to inter- 
fere with that great mission of his. 

I have heard men balk at times at that arti- 
cle in the creed which says, ' i He descended into 
hell." To be sure he did. Do you suppose 
Jesus Christ would stop at hell? No. And if 
there were other hells, he would dare go there 
too. Hell itself could not stay him, and those 
who catch his spirit will not be stayed by hell, 



264 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

nor with any of those expressions of hell with 
which men meet in the world. 

And last of all, there is no body of men on 
whom this clearer vision of the great purpose 
of the church can be laid with more propriety 
than upon a body of laymen like this. Our re- 
ligion is a layman's religion. I say it rever- 
ently. Its Founder was a layman. He was no 
member of the tribe of Levi. He was not an 
ordained ecclesiastic. The Lord Jesus Christ 
was a layman just as we are. The apostles 
were laymen. None was a priest. The eleven 
men on whom he laid the foundation of the 
kingdom, and the twelfth man afterwards 
added, were laymen, like the illustrious, the 
great, men who have carried it from genera- 
tion to generation. And the founders of this 
movement of which we are thinking last of all 
were laymen. Eaymond Lull was only a lay- 
man; William Carey was only a layman when 
he first began to think of our missionary enter- 
prise. It was a little band of college students 
in whose prayer meeting originated a hundred 
years ago the first American missionary so- 
ciety; and we are right here this evening in 
believing that it is to be our privilege to carry 
this great objective purpose of the church, un- 
der the ministers of the church, to fulfillment. 

The first great secretary of our missionary 
organization was a layman, a United States 
Senator, who resigned his position as Secretary 
of the United States Senate to become its secre- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 265 

tary. The first treasurer of the American 
Board and its second secretary, who did more 
to shape its missionary work than any other 
man, was a layman; and yon and I are only 
gathering our own, when we take up the task 
from those we have appointed as leaders. To 
our own obligation and purpose, our own privi- 
lege, we come when we take a share in this en- 
terprise. I think myself God has been waiting 
for the laymen to come to this day. 

It was a great thing in principle that he did 
in the Incarnation. "I will go down," says 
God, "and I will save man by himself.' ' He 
might have saved him otherwise if he wanted 
to. He might have reached them and saved 
men by a distant intervention from above. 
Man lost himself, he said ; man shall save him- 
self. I will go down and by a common man I 
will deliver man from his sins. The Lord must 
have felt the joy of battle against the limita- 
tions that shut him in as man, by which he was 
to deliver man. Maybe God has been waiting 
for that to happen in the church — for the com- 
mon men in the church to make their business 
what was the great business that brought Christ 
down here, the great business that led to the 
organization of the church, the great business 
that has kept the church alive these twenty cen- 
turies in the world, the business now of com- 
pleting what Jesus Christ began. 

Shall we have that great purpose made clear 
to us to-night and then bring these personal 



266 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

lives of ours into absolute and untrammeled 
subjection to it? I remember some lines I 
heard Dr. Edward Hodge quote in one of his 
most earnestly strong addresses, before the 
Synod of Ohio, and wrote them out a little 
while afterward. It is from that old poem on 
Samuel : — 

"I ask no heaven till earth be thine, 
No glory crown while work of mine 

Eemaineth here. When earth shall shine 
Among the stars; 

Her sins cast out, her captives free, 
Her voice a music unto thee, 

For crown ? More work give thou to me. 
Lord, here I am." 

For one thing first of all, and all other things 
consequent upon that; to make Jesus Christ 
known to all the world. That and that only 
first is our business here. 



THE APPENDIX 

I. MINUTES OF THE CONVENTION 

The First Convention of the Presbyterian 
Brotherhood as authorized by the General As- 
sembly of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., 
met in Tomlinson Hall, Indianapolis, Indiana, 
on Wednesday, 14 November, 1906, at 9 :00 A. 
M. 

The proceedings were conducted according to 
the following programme as arranged by the 
Assembly's committee. 

On Tuesday evening, the 13th hist, a banquet was given 
at The Dennison Hotel. Mr. Hugh H. Hanna presided. 
The address of welcome was made by Mr. Henry M. Dowl- 
ing, president of the Indianapolis Brotherhood. The re- 
sponse was made by Mr. William Lilly, of Pittsburgh, Pa. 
Addresses were made by the Rev. Charles William Gordon, 
of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Mr. James Macdonald, of 
Toronto, Ont. 

Wednesday Morning 

Mr. Henry S. Osborne, Chicago, 111., presiding. 
9:00. Devotional Hour, The Rev. John E. Bushnell, D.D., 

Pastor Westminster Church, Minneapolis, Minn. 
10 :00-12 :00. Addresses and Conference. 

The Presbyterian Church, What It Stands For 
The Rev. W. H. Roberts, D.D., LL.D., Stated 
Clerk, General Assembly, Philadelphia. 
267 



268 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

The Boy and The Church 

Mr. Patterson DuBois, Philadelphia. 
The Man and the Church, Mr. Chas. S. Holt, Chicago 
Prayer, The Rev. H. H. Gregg, D.D., Pastor Wash- 
ington and Compton Avenue Church, St. Louis. 



Wednesday Afternoon 

1:30. Meeting for Organization. 

Chairman of the Assembly's Committee, Presiding. 
Address, The Genesis of the Presbyterian Brother- 
hood, The Ohio Overture 
The Rev. B. B. Bigger, Ph.D., Massillon, Ohio. 

a. The Assembly's action and the Committee's Work. 

b. The suggested Constitution for the Brotherhood. 

c. Appointment of Committees. 

3:00. Greetings from Fraternal Organizations. 

1. The Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip 

The Rev. W. H. Pheley, M. D., Sec. 

2. The Brotherhood of the Presbyterian Church, 
South, The Rev. A. L. Phillips, D.D., Richmond, Va. 

3. The Brotherhood of St. Andrew 

Mr. John Henry Smale, Chicago. 

4. The United Presbyterian Men's League 

Mr. McKenzie Cleland, Chicago. 

5. The Methodist Episcopal Brotherhoods of St. 
Paul and Wesley, The Rev. Bishop John H. Vin- 
cent, D.D., LL.D., Indianapolis. 

4:00. Open Conference on Practical Methods 

President Dabney, Presiding. 

Wednesday Evening. 

7:30. John H. Converse, LL.D., presiding. 

Prayer, The Rev. Hunter Corbett, D.D., LL.D., Moder- 
ator of the General Assembly. 
Scriptures, President C. W. Dabney, LL.D., The Univer- 
sity of Cincinnati. 
Address, The Hon. William Jennings Bryan. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 269 



Thursday Morning 

9:00. Devotional Service 

Conducted by the Rev. John E. Bushnell, D.D. 
9:30. Addresses and Conference 

Mr. H. C. Gara, Philadelphia, presiding. 
Brotherhood : 

Its Need in the Church 

Mr. Paul C. Martin, Springfield, 0. 
Its Development Within the Church 

Mr. Jos. Ernest McAfee, New York. 
Its Responsibilities, Every Christian Man a Pilot 
The Rev. Chas. W. Gordon, D.D. ("Ralph Connor"), 
Winnipeg, Manitoba. 
These addresses were followed by open conferences. 

Thursday Afternoon 

Business Session — Reports of Committees and Action 
Thereon, Mr. Chas. S. Holt, Chicago, presiding. 

2:00. Addresses and Conference 

Louis H. Severance, Cleveland, Ohio, presiding. 
Service : 

The Men of Our Church, and Their Minister 

The Rev. J. Ross Stevenson, D.D., New York. 
The Evangelization of Our Countrymen 

The Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. 
The Men of Our Church and the Labor Interests 

The Rev. Chas. Stelzle, New York. 
The Men of Our Church and the Spiritual Life 

Mr. Chas. G. Trumbull, Philadelphia. 
Prayer. 

Thursday Evening 

7:30. Mr. Hugh-H. Hanna, presiding. 

Prayer, The Rev. President Jas. D. Moffat, D.D., LL.D., 

Washington and Jefferson College. 
Addresses : 

The Men of Our Church and Civil Affairs 

The Rev. Ira Landrith, D.D., LL.D., Nashville, 

Tenn., Moderator of the last Assembly 

of the Cumberland Presbyterian 

Church. 



270 THE PRESBYTEKIAN BROTHERHOOD 

The Men of Our Church and Bible Study. 
The Rev. W. W. White, D.D., President, 
Winona Bible School, New York. 
The Evangelization of the World 

Mr. Robert E. Speer, New York. 



n. THE ATTENDANCE AT THE CONVENTION 

The Assembly's Committee decided, on ac- 
count of an obscurity in the Provisional Plan as 
to the basis of representation that all men who 
attended from Presbyterian churches should 
be enrolled as delegates. The number of those 
who inscribed their names in the book provided 
by the local committee was over 1,000 but from 
other data it is evident that there were present 
at least 1,250 men from outside of Indianapo- 
lis. A more definite statement as to this will be 
made in the records of the General Council. 

III. ANALYSIS OF THE MEMBERS OF THE CONVEN- 
TION BY OCCUPATION 

Accountant 14 Board of H. Missions.. 4 

Abstractor 2 Board Foreign Missions 4 

Artisan 11 Board State Charities.. 1 

Artist 1 Collector 2 

Architect 1 Coal & Lime 6 

Auctioneer 1 Civil Engineer 13 

Banking 53 Cattleman 2 

Broker 5 Carpenter 2 

Business Man 79 Commercial Traveler... 27 

Barber 1 Civil Official 2 

Builder 6 C. E. Society 3 

Blacksmith 4 City Official 2 

Baker 3 Clerk 90 

Buyer 4 College Pres 5 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 271 

College Prof 9 Oculist 1 

Contractor 8 Optician 2 

County Official 1 Pork Packer 1 

Chemist 2 Policeman 1 

Druggist 1 Physician 23 

Dentist 9 Printer 10 

Draughtsman 3 Promoter 13 

Dairyman 1 Plumber 5 

Expressman 1 Publisher 11 

Engineer 2 Painter 5 

Electrician 4 Pattern Maker 1 

Electrical Engineer 1 Photographer 4 

Farmer 49 Eeal Estate 40 

Florist 2 Railroad Man 33 

Fire Insurance 6 R. R. Mail Service ..... 5 

Forester 2 Retired 6 

Grocer 13 Shoe Maker 1 

Grain Dealer. 2 Stenographer 2 

Huckster 1 Sign Painter , . 1 

Horticulturalist 3 Solicitor 1 

Hotel Keeper 2 Salesman 41 

Hardware 2 Surveyor 2 

Insurance, Gen 10 Saw Maker 1 

Judge 1 Sailor, U. S. Navy 1 

Jeweler 2 Supt. Schools 5 

Lumber 16 Student 42 

Letter Carrier 9 Sec. Y. M. C. A. . . . . . . 5 

Librarian 2 Theo. Students 4 

Lawyer 130 Teacher 25 

Life Insurance 26 Telephone Serv 6 

Laborer 3 Telegraphy 4 

Laundryman 2 Tailor 1 

Machinist 11 Tinner 1 

Miner 1 U. S. Cen. Serv 1 

Missionary 3 U. S. Gov't 4 

Medical Student 4 TJ. S. Mail 1 

Merchant 80 U. S. Army 1 

Manufacturer 62 Upholsterer 4 

Mechanical Engineer..-. 3 Undertaker 1 

Musician 3 Wall Paper 3 

Minister 284 Wholesale Merch 13 

Newspaper Man 19 

Newsboy 2 Total 1,476 



272 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

At the business session on Wednesday af- 
ternoon the following action was taken : 

Mr. Allan Sutherland of Philadelphia was ap- 
pointed Secretary. 

The Rules of Order governing the General 
Assembly were adopted. 

The Assembly's committee, by the chairman, 
presented the following suggested constitution: 

Article I. This organization, as authorized 
by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church, U. S. A., is composed of all the local 
organizations of men in the churches of our de- 
nomination, that declare their acceptance of 
Article 2 of this constitution. (See foot-note 
below.) 

Article II. The object of the Brotherhood 
shall be to secure the organization of the men 
of our congregations, with a view to spiritual 
development, fraternal relations, denomina- 
tional fealty, the strengthening of fellowship, 
and the engagement in the works of Christian 
usefulness. 

Article III. The Brotherhood shall hold a 
convention annually, as provided for in the plan 
adopted by the General Assembly, at which time 
there shall be elected the General Council. The 
convention shall concert measures for the gen- 
eral welfare of the Brotherhood. 

Note. It is definitely declared that no specific type of 
local organization is required ; each one is left absolutely 
free to formulate its own constitution and prosecute its 
own methods of work. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 273 

Article IV. The General Council shall con- 
sist of twenty-one members, to be divided into 
three classes, one class of seven to be elected 
each year. Those chosen at the first convention 
shall arrange themselves into three classes by 
whatever plan the Council may determine, to 
serve one, two, and thre years. The quorum 
of the General Council shall be ten. 

Article V. The powers of the General Coun- 
cil shall be: 

1. To promote and assist the organizations 
of men in all our congregations. 

2. To arrange for the annual conventions. 

3. To aid in the holding of presbyterial and 
synodical conventions. 

4. To employ such executive officers as may 
be necessary and to fix their salaries. 

5. To secure, by voluntary subscriptions, the 
funds necessary to carry out the work, but no 
assessments or per capita tax is to be levied on 
any local organization or its membership. 

6. To elect such officers and sub-committees 
as may be found necessary and adopt rules for 
their guidance. 

7. To secure articles of incorporation, when 
in the judgment of the council, it is expedient 
to do so. 

8. To choose an Executive Committee of 
seven to whom shall be entrusted such matters 
as may be so referred by action of the General 
Council. Five members of the Executive Com- 
mittee shall be necessary to constitute a quo- 

18 



274 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

rum. This committee shall elect its own of- 
ficers and adopt rules for their guidance. It 
shall meet the call of the chairman on due no- 
tice. 

9. To appoint fraternal delegates to corre- 
sponding bodies. 

Article VI. The General Council shall meet 
at least twice a year ; at the time of the conven- 
tion and at a date at least three months before 
the following convention. 

Article VII. The Brotherhood and all its 
affiliated local organizations are under the con- 
trol of the General Assembly as provided for in 
Chapter xxiii of the Form of Government. 

Article VIII. This constitution may be 
amended at any annual convention provided no- 
tice of the proposed amendment is given to the 
General Council through the chairman prior to 
the meeting immediately preceding the conven- 
tion. A two-thirds vote shall be necessary to 
pass an amendment. 

The following committees were appointed to 
report on Thursday afternoon, viz: 

Constitution : — Harry C. Olin, Chairman ; 
T. H. Gray; Chas. Beid; J. H. Perrin; Ledyard 
Cogswell ; Clayton E. Crafts ; W. E. Farrand. 

Business: — J. H. Jefferis, Chairman; E. A. 
B. Ward; Thomas A. Hall; James J. Parks; 
E. M. Todd; J. W. Brown; W. B. Harris; Dr. 
J. C. Fisher ; Wm. Moore ; *A. H. Frederick ; 
Ed. Treat. 

Nominations : — H. C. Gara, Chairman ; T. B. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 2?5 

Cobbs; Nolan E. Best; E. P. Hargitt; H. L. 
Smith; E. H. Harned; E. D. Cone; Jas. H. 
Gray ; J. D. Husted ; John H. Dewitt ; Mr. Shep- 
herd. 

Ten delegates from the Southern Presbyter- 
ian Church were welcomed and seated as dele- 
gates. The Eev. A. L. Phillips, D.D., of Eich- 
mond, Va., responded on behalf of the dele- 
gates. 

The chairmen of the various committees were 
authorized to fill any vacancies that might oc- 
cur. 

The Eev. S. Edward Young of Pittsburgh, 
reported the following as having been adopted 
by the Assembly's committee. 

Resolved, That we express to the session 
and congregation of the First Presbyterian 
Church of Springfield, Ohio, our appreciation 
of the services of their pastor, the Eev. John 
Clark Hill, D.D., as chairman of this committee. 

Dr. Hill has most efficiently forwarded the 
cause of the Presbyterian Brotherhood. To his 
ability and consecration is due in no small meas- 
ure the present success of this effort to organ- 
ize Presbyterian men. We believe the First 
Church may take reasonable pride in their con- 
tribution through their pastor to this historic 
movement. 

The action was adopted unanimously by the 
convention. The secretary was instructed to 
forward a copy of this resolution to the clerk 



276 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

of the session of the First Presbyterian Church, 
Springfield, Ohio. 

It was ordered moved that the details of 
changes in the program be left in the hands of 
Dr. Hill. 

The constitution suggested by the Assembly's 
committee together with all proposed changes 
was referred to the Committee on Constitu- 
tion. 

It was ordered that all recommendations be 
submitted to the various committees and that 
each recommendation contain two signers. 

The following telegrams of greeting were re- 
ceived, viz: 

New York, N. Y., Nov. 14, 1906. 
The Secretary of the Presbyterian Brotherhood 
Convention, Tomlinson Hall, Indianapolis, 
Ind.: 

The St. Paul and Wesley Brotherhood (the 
Brotherhoods of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church) to the Presbyterian Brotherhood; 
greetings and propitious auguries, Matthew 
four, nineteen, "Come ye after me, and I will 
make you fishers of men." 

W. Patterson, Secretary, 
W. D. Bridge, Asst. Sec't. 

Brooklyn, N. Y., Nov. 14, 1906. 
To the Chairman Presbyterian Brotherhood 
Convention, Indianapolis, Ind.: 
Most cordial greetings and sympathetic in- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 277 

terest in your council from the Presbyterian 
Social Union of Brooklyn, at its first meeting. 

H. K. Twitchell, Secy. 

The Secretary was instructed to send suita- 
ble replies. 



THURSDAY, 15th NOV. 

The convention was called to order at 2:20 
P. M. Chas. S. Holt, presiding. 

The report of the Committee on Constitution 
was presented by the chairman, Mr. H. C. Olin 
and adopted as follows : 

I. That the General Assembly's committee 
continue in charge of this convention until its 
adjournment. 

II. That the nominating committee be re- 
quested to present to the Convention the names 
of twenty-one men who shall constitute the 
General Council of the Brotherhood as sug- 
gested in the constitution submitted by the Gen- 
eral Assembly's committee; that this Council 
shall elect its own officers, and to it shall be 
referred the proposed constitution and all 
amendments submitted; that this Council shall 
be commissioned with full power to adopt a 
constitution and to report the same at its 
earliest convenience to the General Assembly's 
committee and to the churches through the 
church papers and in such other ways as it may 
seem expedient, with the understanding that 



278 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

changes in said constitution may be made at the 
next national convention. 

III. That this Council shall designate the time 
and place for the next national convention, shall 
determine the basis of representation in the 
same, and shall arrange all preliminary details 
for holding it. 

IV. That, pending the adoption of the consti- 
tution by the Council, the churches be urged 
to proceed at once to the organization of men's 
societies under the control of the General As- 
sembly as provided for in Chapter 23 of the 
Form of Government. 

The Committee on Nominations, by its chair- 
man, Mr. H. C. Gara, presented the following 
report which was adopted : 

In accordance with the action of the report 
of the Committee on Constitution, we recom- 
mend the following General Council of twenty- 
one members: Hugh H. Hanna, Indianapolis; 
C. T. Thompson, Minneapolis; Chas. W. Dab- 
ney, Cincinnati; John H. Converse, Philadel- 
phia; W. E. Settle, Bowling Green, Ky.; John 
Willis Baer, Los Angeles ; Frederick A. Wallis, 
New York City; E. M. Treat, St. Louis; Jo- 
seph Ailing, Kochester, N. Y.; J. D. Husted, 
Denver; Chas. S. Holt, Chicago; Ealph W. 
Harbison, Pittsburgh; A. E. Turner, Waxa- 
hachie, Tex.; A. B. T. Moore, Cedar Rapids, 
Iowa; W. R. Farrand, Detroit; A. R. Taylor, 
Decatur, 111. ; W. M. Ladd, Portland, Oreg. ; J. 
L. Severance, Cleveland, Ohio; Cyrus H. Mc- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 279 

Cormick, Chicago ; Franklin W. Ganse, Boston ; 
Elisha Perkins, Baltimore. 

It was ordered that any vacancies be filled 
by the General Council. 

The following resolution was presented from 
the business committee, Mr. J. H. Jefferis, 
Chairman, and adopted: 

Resolved: Believing the vitality of the 
movement undertaken in the Presbyterian 
Church to promote the religious activity of 
Christian men, depends upon the vigor and 
abundance of volunteer service enlisted in it, 
and rejoicing in the extraordinary success so 
far attained by volunteer service alone, this con- 
vention expresses the conviction that for the 
earlier period of the movement no salaries 
should be paid, at least for the first year, ex- 
cept for such clerical work as may be necessary 
in a central office of correspondence and infor- 
mation, unless in the opinion of^ the General 
Council the welfare of the Brotherhood should 
demand otherwise. 

At the close of the Eev. Charles Stelzle 's ad- 
dress the following resolution was adopted : 

Resolved: That we, The Presbyterian 
Brotherhood, composed of men of all vocations, 
do hereby place ourselves on record as being 
in Christian sympathy with the workingmen 
of our nation ; that we bid our Board of Home 
Missions God speed in the work of bringing 
about a closer union between the church and 
labor. 



280 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

A committee of three was appointed by the 
chairman, to draft a resolution to be forwarded 
to the American Federation of Labor Conven- 
tion, at Minneapolis, the same to be presented 
by the Eev. Mr. Stelzle. 

The following was presented and adopted: 

Resolved: That the Presbyterian Broth- 
erhood, in its first convention at Indianapojis, 
joins with the Brotherhood of Labor, as repre- 
sented in the American Federation of Labor, 
in convention assembled at Minneapolis in de- 
votion to the ideal of life given by the Great 
Master. "If any would be great among you, 
let him be your servant. For even the Son of 
man came not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister. ' ' 

The Business Committee presented and 
recommended the adoption of the following 
resolutions which were adopted: 

Whereas, Many local societies have sent 
delegates with regular credentials, and it is de- 
sirable that the action of such societies be 
recognized in view of the historic character of 
this meeting, therefore, 

Resolved: That all delegates having such 
formal written credentials be directed to de- 
posit same with the secretary of this conven- 
tion and that a roll of such societies be made 
that the action of these societies may receive 
proper recognition and record. 

The men here assembled appreciating the 
splendid and unselfish work of the committee 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 281 

of the General Assembly of our church which 
has culminated in the launching of this move- 
ment in behalf of the Brotherhood of Presby- 
terian men, hereby record approval of their 
work and express thanks for their faithful de- 
votion. 

Though the Local Committee of Arrange- 
ments had many new, uncertain, and difficult 
propositions to meet, yet they have surmounted 
them with such patience, ability, and Christian 
hospitality that we feel ourselves under pro- 
found obligations to them and hereby tender 
them our sincere thanks with the hope and 
prayer that God's face will continue to shine 
upon them and give them peace. 

This convention hereby tenders its thanks 
to the press of the city for the full reports, and 
to the many distinguished gentlemen who have 
so ably addressed this convention. 

The sessions were closed with prayer and 
the apostolic benediction. 

Attest : Allan Sutherland, Sec. 

John Clark Hill, Chairman. 

IV. THE CONVENTION BUTTON 

Was designed by the Rev. Henry C. McCook, 
D.D., Devon, Pa. The device is that of the 
ancient seal of our church made in the 18th cen- 
tury, before any divisions had occurred. It is 
now on the seal of the trustees of our General 
Assembly. The motto is Christies Exaltatus 



282 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

Salvator, — An Uplifted Christ our Saviour; 
the device represents Christ's reference to his 
sacrificial and saving death in John 3:14. 



V. THE ASSEMBLY'S COMMITTEE ON MEN'S 
SOCIETIES 

Eev. John Clark Hill, D.D., Springfield, Ohio, 

Chairman. 
Mr. Dwight H. Day, 156 Fifth Av., New York, 

Treas. 
Eev. John Balcom Shaw, D.D., Michigan Av. 

& 20th St., Chicago, 111. 
Eev. S. Edward Young, D.D., 5 Colonial Place, 

Pittsburgh, Pa. 
Eev. Alfred H. Barr, 567 Congress St., Detroit, 

Mich. 
Eev. DeWitt M. Benham, Ph.D., The Cecil, 

Baltimore, Md. 
Mr. William T. Ellis, Wyncote, Pa. 
Mr. Andrew Stevenson, 950 First National 

Bank Building, Chicago, 111. 
Mr. Chas. T. Thompson, 36 Loan & Trust Bldg., 

Minneapolis, Minn. 
Mr. Jas. M. Patterson, 707 Pine St., St. Louis, 

Mo. 

LOCAL. COMMITTEES 

Eev. Owen D. Odell, Chairman. 
Eev. Frank 0. Ballard, D.D., Chairman Com- 
mittee on Entertainment. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 283 



VI. SAMPLE CONSTITUTIONS 

No. 1. 

I. The name of this organization is, The 

Brotherhood of the Church 

of 

II. The object of the Brotherhood is to pro- 
mote spiritual development, fraternal relations, 
denominational fealty, the strengthening of fel- 
lowship, and the engagement in works of Chris- 
tian usefulness by the men of the congregation 
in connection with the Presbyterian Brother- 
hood authorized by the General Assembly, 
1906. 

III. Membership: Every male member of 
this church, and those who are attendants on 
its services, from sixteen years and upwards, 
may become members on the payment of an 
initiation fee of fifty cents and the annual pay- 
ment, in advance, of a like sum, for incidental 
expenses. 

IV. The Session shall have a supervisory 
jurisdiction over the work of the Brotherhood. 

V. Regular Meetings shall be held on 

All regular meetings to be opened with devo- 
tional exercises. 

The order of business at regular meetings 
shall be, 1, Call to order; 2, Devotional Exer- 
cises; 3, Minutes; 4, Reports; 5, Unfinished 
business; 6, New business; 7, The Program; 8, 
Adjournment. 

VI. Sec. 1. The regular committees shall 



284 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

be, 1, Executive, the chairman, secretary, and 
treasurer, being elected by the Brotherhood, 
these three to appoint all the other committees, 
the chairmen of which shall be members of the 
Executive Committee, all of whom shall hold 
office for one year or until their successors are 
chosen. 

Sec. 2. The additional regular committees 
shall be : 2, Program ; 3, Eeception, and, 4, De- 
votional. 

Sec. 3. Special committees may be ap- 
pointed and duties defined by the Executive 
Committee. 

Sec. 4. The pastor shall be, ex-officio, a 
member of all committees. 

Sec. 5. The Executive Committee shall out- 
line the work of the Brotherhood for the year ; 
shall have control of the funds; approve and 
authorize the payment of all bills; no expense 
to be incurred without the sanction of this com- 
mittee. 

Sec. 6. The Program Committee shall have 
charge of the program for the monthly meet- 
ings, shall provide speakers, music and refresh- 
ments, in accordance with the general policy as 
outlined by the Executive Committee. 

Sec. 7. The Reception Committee shall act 
as ushers at the meetings, welcome and intro- 
duce strangers. 

Sec. 8. The Devotional Committee shall be 
concerned with the development of things 
which tend to broaden, widen, and deepen spir- 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 285 

itual power among men, especially in connec- 
tion with organized activities, to take charge 
of the devotional exercises at regular meetings, 
and secure the enrollment of men in the 
Brotherhood Bible class. 

VII. This constitution may be amended, or 
added to by a majority vote of the members 
present at any regular meeting. 

No. 2. 

Article I. This organization shall be known 
as The of the Church. 

Article II. The object of this organization 
shall be to promote spiritual development, fra- 
ternal relations, denominational fealty, the 
strengthening of fellowship, and the engage- 
ment in works of Christian usefulness on the 
part of the men of the congregation, as an or- 
ganization affiliated with the Presbyterian 
Brotherhood, authorized by the General Assem- 
bly, 1906. 

Article III. All male members of this 
church, or male members of any evangelical 
church who are members of this congregation, 
shall be eligible to membership. Also all male 
members of the congregation not members of 
the church but who are actively cooperating in 
the general work of the church shall be eligible 
to associate membership. They shall be ad- 
mitted by an affirmative vote, on recommenda- 
tion of the Membership Committee. An appli- 
cation for membership shall be considered also 
a pledge of service. 



286 THE PRESBYTERIAN BROTHERHOOD 

Article IV. The officers shall be a presi- 
dent, vice president, secretary, and treasurer. 
The officers shall be elected by ballot at the reg- 
ular meeting in ..,...., and shall hold their of- 
fice for one year. The pastor shall be ex-officio 
a member of each committee. 

Article V. In accordance with Presby- 
terian polity, the session shall have general su- 
pervisory jurisdiction. 

Article VI. The definite purpose of the or- 
ganization is to bring men to Christ and to the 
activities of the Christian life. This purpose 
shall be prosecuted through the work of the 
following committees : 

1. Executive Committee. Composed of the 
officers and chairmen of the several commit- 
tees, to have general direction. 

2. Membership Committee. To secure new 
members and to encourage the fidelity and use- 
fulness of all members. 

3. Committee of Inside Work. To have spe- 
cial responsibility for work done in connection 
with meetings in the church, and specifically: 

(a) To welcome strangers and occasional at- 
tendants; to introduce them to members and 
the pastor; to cultivate the spirit of fellowship 
among the men of the church and congrega- 
tion. 

(b) To stimulate the interest of men in all 
the church services ; to prepare, under the pas- 
tor 's approval, musical or other programs, espe- 
cially for the Sunday evening service. 



INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 287 

(c) To provide such social meetings as shall 
be for the best interest of the men of the con- 
gregation. 

(d) To hold religions meetings for men, and 
through these and other proper means bring 
the gospel invitation and Christian obligation 
to men individually. 

(e) To inform and interest the men of the 
congregation in its missionary and benevolent 
operations. 

4. Committee of Outside Work. To have 
special responsibility for work to be done out- 
side the church, and specifically: 

(a) To invite strangers and non-church 
goers to the services of this church; to secure 
regularity of attendance by the men of the con- 
gregation who are irregular or indifferent. 

(b) To use all proper means to advertise 
the work and services of the church. 

(c) To visit strangers and the sick, and re- 
port all such cases to the pastor and Executive 
Committee. 

5. Finance Committee. To provide the funds 
necessary for the work. The treasurer shall 
be chairman. 

Article VII. The regular meetings shall be 
held on 

Article VIII. This constitution may be 
amended by a majority vote at any regular 
meeting, providing notice of such amendment 
has been given at least one regular meeting in 
advance. 



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